China’s AI-driven ‘new quality combat capabilities’ in the Taiwan Strait

China’s Two Sessions in March 2024 contained few highlights regarding the military. However, there are a few interesting points in the information released.

First, the biggest obstacle to the People Liberation Army (PLA)‘s military development and deployment will not be foreign military forces but its own logistical and internal management, as reflected in the anti-corruption campaign by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This is closely aligned with the CCP’s directive to “obey the Party’s command, able to fight and win, and maintain excellent conduct”.

While “the Party commands the gun” is an unshakeable fact, applying this principle to personnel appointments and deployments raises concerns about “prioritising loyalty to communist ideals over professionalism” and potentially allowing “laypersons to lead the experts”. These are issues that must be considered.

Besides highlighting the importance of the party, the Two Sessions report also emphasised PLA’s impressive accomplishments over the past year, reaffirming Xi Jinping’s third term in office. After all, if achievements are not substantial, wouldn’t it cast a pall on his third term? It is therefore critical that the Two Sessions report be self-affirming.

Furthermore, regarding military spending, beyond expenses for modernisation, the consistent rise in the defence budget also reflects the PLA’s heightened focus on troop remuneration. Amid challenging economic conditions, the budget increase ensures stability in military personnel compensation, addressing recruitment challenges exacerbated by China’s declining fertility rates.

After all, besides the development of new equipment, increased frequency of exercises and ongoing logistics support, personnel remuneration is an important component of the defence budget.

The last item of note is so-called “new quality combat capabilities”. At a plenary meeting of the delegation of the PLA and the People’s Armed Police Force during the National People’s Congress on 7 March, Xi gave a directive to develop new quality combat capabilities, and the term has since piqued much curiosity.

The PLA used the term back in the end of 2015, in a People’s Daily column that introduced the concept of “new quality combat capabilities”. It was defined as integrated combat capabilities based on information systems, bringing together integrated sensing, real-time command and control, precision attacks, comprehensive defence, and targeted safeguards — a fundamental form of combat effectiveness under conditions of informatisation.

In 2017, the PLA Daily also mentioned that with the progress in military technology and changes in military missions, what were new quality combat capabilities had gradually become normal, to be replaced by even newer quality combat capabilities.

Nevertheless, since Xi came to power, he has often reused old terminologies, albeit with new meanings. A case in point is the term “new normal”, which was initially used on economic transformation and changes, but has recently become an important indicator of Xi’s reforms. This term now denotes the establishment of new rules and actions, as opposed to short-term slogans, and replacing past behaviours with new norms.

Therefore, while we can draw on past meanings when considering the term new quality combat capabilities, we need to pay more attention to its new meanings and applications given current technologies.

Specifically, a PLA Daily article on 8 March entitled “Seek New Quality Combat Capabilities From Emerging Fields” mentions that emerging fields are a relative concept that constantly changes with technological developments.

The emergent concepts and technologies in big data, blockchain, AI, cyberspace, the deep ocean, and aerospace are considered emerging fields. They stimulate new quality productive forces and accelerate the development of new quality combat capabilities. This implies that new quality combat capabilities must be inextricably linked to what the PLA has been referring to as “informatisation” and “intelligent”.

In the new-generation battlefield, the talents needed for aerospace, radar, electromagnetic interference suppression and cyber warfare are very different from those needed for the “millet plus rifles” battles of yesteryears. The recruitment, training and retention of these required talents are even greater challenges in the current contexts of sub-replacement fertility rates and economic globalisation.

These mean that the “new quality talents” who possess new quality combat capabilities will not necessarily be military talents, and will be treated differently by the government compared to the past. This goes back to the concept of Military-Civil Fusion (MCF), or civil-military integration, often articulated by the CCP. However, it will encompass not only production and technological cooperation and exchanges but also the training and collaboration of talents.

In the era of intelligence, the line between military and civilian roles blurs. Utilising these lab-developed capabilities in combat necessitates continual simulations and exercises under real conditions, thus bridging new quality productive forces and new quality combat capabilities.

As for AI, it will be pivotal in shaping new high quality combat capabilities. Currently, equipment and vehicles lack autonomous combat abilities. Nonetheless, there is potential to develop unmanned vehicles by defining parameters and conditions.

However, before AI goes into the field, more parameters are needed, which means that the PLA will require more usage experience to boost its databases for training the AI.

This may also explain China’s recent repeated use of unmanned aerial vehicles at the Taiwan Strait. After all, the Taiwan Strait is likely to be the next major battlefield for China, and obtaining more parameters through non-combat flights will aid in future wars.

The biggest challenge for China is not technological research and development (R&D), but limitations in organisation and management. Under China’s principle of “doing great things with concentrated power” (集中力量办大事), once Beijing decides on a concerted effort in AI development, it is absolutely only a matter of time for China to be technologically ready.

In late April 2024, the PLA remade its Strategic Support Force, established in 2016, into the Aerospace Force, Cyberspace Force and Information Support Force. While the organisational structure is not necessarily related to military AI applications, the PLA has continued to restructure units responsible for information management after its military reforms in 2015. These adjustments will take time to be effectively integrated.

In the era of intelligence, can the PLA maintain its preference to have its people wait for equipment and not vice versa? How will PLA officers and troops integrate technological warfare with an organisational management model where “the Party commands the gun”? This will take time to observe; after all, the equipment is still operated by people.

This is also why the CCP repeatedly emphasised the development of civil-military relationships during the Two Sessions, including establishing military-civilian coordination system, strengthening the development and mobilisation of new quality combat capabilities in new fields, and developing the defence technology sector.

While the CCP has previously emphasised MCF, it is now more interested in civil-military integration to leverage the talents and capital in the society, as well as tap into dual-use facilities for defence development. These intentions are evident from the Two Sessions.

In terms of cross-strait China-Taiwan relations, immediately after Taiwan President Lai Ching-te took office, the CCP staged the Joint Sword-2024A drills targeting Taiwan, featuring traditional naval and air forces to blockade Taiwan.

Although it was claimed that the combined PLA Army, Navy, Air Forces and Rocket Force were mobilised, China did not fire the Dongfeng missiles during the drills. This is unlike the military exercises during which missiles were launched over Taiwan as a deterrence after Nancy Pelosi visited the island in 2022.

Instead, the CCP has hoped that the use of traditional forces will limit cross-strait tension between China and Taiwan without causing concern or perceived threats to other regional countries.

Despite this, the CCP has also begun to repeatedly use unmanned aerial vehicles to probe the vulnerabilities of Taiwan’s air defence; it is deploying naval vessels in the vicinity as a deterrence, and launching many military exercises to collect battlefield information at the Taiwan Strait. The information collected will be increased data input to the CCP’s AI combat simulation system, which the CCP might use in the AI era.

For Taiwan, it will be considerably difficult to compete with the CCP in overall R&D in technological warfare. However, Taiwan is already an integral part of the global supply chain for key components, such as semiconductors.

For instance, when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited Taiwan in June 2024, he repeatedly mentioned the importance of Taiwan in the AI industry on various occasions. This shows that the stability of the Taiwan Strait is essential for global trade as well as the economic development of various countries and global enterprises.

Taiwan’s new government might need to think about how to enhance the development of its IT industry and to further connect with the global community.

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