CHINA’S MILITARY
and
THE U.S.-JAPAN ALLIANCE IN 2030
against the Japanese islands using air or naval assets. Aerial refueling and long-range bombers would continue to be an underdeveloped sector in PLA capabilities. In defensive terms, China’s coastal SAM inventory would enable it to intercept some incoming cruise missiles. In the event of a major conflict, this could become a battle of inventories, where Japan and the United States run out of LACMs before China runs out of SAMs (or vice versa). Moreover, the PLA’s littoral and onshore naval and air assets would present an imperfect but not insignificant challenge to any potential offensive allied air attacks at targets on the Chinese Mainland. The Space and Cyberspace Domains
Although the PLA will have continued to expand its network of space-based and OTHR assets, the ability to conduct successful missile targeting will continue to prove elusive. China would possess a basic direct-ascent ASAT capability that could threaten U.S. satellites, but U.S. countermeasures (cyberattack, kinetic C4ISR attacks, possibly satellite maneuvering) could render it ineffective. Similarly, though China would be able to launch cyberattacks against unclassified U.S. and Japanese military networks, such attacks would likely not prove completely debilitating to allied operations. At the same time, the PLA’s own informationized forces and spacebased C4ISR assets would be highly susceptible to cyberwarfare and laser blinding attacks. Command and Control
Central oversight of PLA decisionmaking could become more episodic under this trajectory, in light of significant regime instability and insecurity. Interservice competition over limited resources may impede efforts to promote joint interoperability. Although training will have continued to become more sophisticated, exercising will remain incomparably frequent to that practiced by the United States, in part due to constrained resources.
Trajectory 4: Aggressive Ultranationalism Under this trajectory of “Aggressive Ultranationalism,” Beijing would pursue a strategy of lessened cooperative engagement with Tokyo, accompanied by a largely hostile and confrontational stance toward the alliance, and high-range defense capabilities.
Foreign Policy and M ilitary Str ategy Under this trajectory, Beijing would adopt a far less compromising, more adversarial foreign and defense policy stance toward Japan and the United States–Japan alliance. This could include an array of highly assertive diplomatic, economic, and military efforts intended (1) to intimidate Tokyo in the contest over territory and resources in the East China Sea and with regard to any possible support it might provide in a Taiwan crisis; (2) to push
102