News/Features

China military power report examines changes in Beijing’s strategy

by Jim Garamone

DOD News

The 2022 China Military Power Report lays out the challenges facing the United States military as it works to manage relations with the emerging superpower.

The report, released today, calls the Peoples’ Republic of China “the most consequential and systemic challenge to our national security and to a free and open international system.”

A senior defense official speaking on background said China is increasingly clear, in its ambitions and intentions. “It’s important to understand the contours of [Peoples’ Liberation Army] modernization to include their thinking about what the PLA’s way of war would look like, to kind of survey their current activities and modernizing capabilities and to assess their future military modernization goals,” he said to reporters prior to the release of the report.

The official said an important element of China’s strategy “is a determined pursuit to amass and expand its national power to transform — at least — aspects of the international system to make it more favorable to the PRC’s political system and its national interests.” This is a prime aspect of both domestic and foreign policy initiatives.

See CHINA, Page 15

Photo by Chad McNeeley

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III greets Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, June 10.

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