Executive Summary The re-emergence of the Chinese “security for hire” industry which is deeply rooted in Chinese history and trade practices is largely a result of the beginning of market reforms in the 1980s and China’s growing integration into global trade. Since 2013, after the inauguration of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), discussions on the use (and methods of use) of …
China s military, emerging as a true competitor to the US, now has hypersonic missiles that evade most defenses. Its attack drones can swarm to paralyze communications networks. Its naval ships outnumber America s and it has about 2 million members in its military.
In April, I asserted that the lessons learned from Russia’s war in Ukraine might influence China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to “accelerate the timetable for a smaller scale conflict” in the Taiwan Strait, short of a full-scale amphibious invasion (China Brief, April 8). On August 4, the PLA began a series of joint live-fire exercises in six exclusion zones surrounding Taiwan, including some that imposed on Taiwan’s territorial seas (81.cn, August 6). These exercises signal Beijing’s extreme pique that U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi led a Congressional delegation to meet with the leadership of Taiwan on August 2 and 3 (People’s Daily, August 3). Longtime students of PLA doctrine and military thought will recognize that these exercises have been in the works for the better part of two decades. In The Science of Joint Training, military deterrence is described as an essential objective of joint live-fire exercises:The essence of military de