Report to Congress on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2025
PREFACE:
For twenty-five years, Congress has directed the Department of War to provide an annual report on military and security developments relating to the People’s Republic of China. These reports have chronicled the development of China’s military capabilities and strategy.
China’s military focus is currently the First Island Chain that runs from the Japanese archipelago to the Malay Peninsula. Beijing recognizes this region as the strategic center of gravity for its goals in the region. While China’s strategic center of gravity remains the First Island Chain, however, as Beijing continues to grow wealthier and more powerful, it is logical that its military power will also continue to grow towards a force capable of projecting power worldwide. This aligns with Beijing’s stated ambition to field a “worldclass” military by 2049, and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has already made significant progress in this regard.
Under President Trump’s leadership, relations between the United States and China are stronger than they have been in many years, and the Department of War will support efforts to build on this progress. We will do so in part by opening a wider range of military-to-military communications with the PLA with a focus on strategic stability as well as deconfliction and de-escalation, more broadly. We will also seek other ways to make clear our peaceful intentions.
At the same time, we will ensure that the Joint Force is always ready and able to defend our nation’s interests in the Indo-Pacific. As we do so, it bears emphasizing that U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific are fundamental—but also scoped and reasonable. We do not seek to strangle, dominate, or humiliate China. Rather, as laid out in President Trump’s National Security Strategy, we seek only to deny the ability of any country in the Indo-Pacific to dominate us or our allies. That means being so strong that aggression is not even considered, and that peace is therefore preferred and preserved. The Department of War will therefore prioritize bolstering deterrence in the Indo-Pacific through strength, not confrontation.
President Trump seeks a stable peace, fair trade, and respectful relations with China, and the Department of War will ensure that he is able to achieve these objectives from a position of military strength. In the process, we will forge and sustain a balance of power that will enable all of us to enjoy a decent peace in an Indo-Pacific—one in which trade flows openly and fairly, we can all prosper, and all nations’ interests are respected.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has for decades marshaled resources, technology, and political will to achieve its vision of a world-class military. The PLA is a key component of China’s ambition to displace the United States as the world’s most powerful nation. The PLA measures its concepts and capabilities against the “strong enemy” of the United States. Moreover, China’s top military strategy focuses squarely on overcoming the United States through a whole-of-nation mobilization effort that Beijing terms “national total war.”
China’s historic military buildup has made the U.S. homeland increasingly vulnerable. China maintains a large and growing arsenal of nuclear, maritime, conventional long-range strike, cyber, and space capabilities able to directly threaten Americans’ security. In 2024, Chinese cyberespionage campaigns such as Volt Typhoon burrowed into U.S. critical infrastructure, demonstrating capabilities that could disrupt the U.S. military in a conflict and harm American interests.
The PLA continues to make steady progress toward its 2027 goals, whereby the PLA must be able to achieve “strategic decisive victory” over Taiwan, “strategic counterbalance” against the United States in the nuclear and other strategic domains, and “strategic deterrence and control” against other regional countries. In other words, China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027.
In pursuit of these goals, the PLA continues to refine multiple military options to force Taiwan unification by brute force. Those options include, most dangerously, an amphibious invasion, firepower strike, and possibly a maritime blockade. Over 2024, the PLA tested essential components of these options, including through exercises to strike sea and land targets, strike U.S. forces in the Pacific, and block access to key ports. PLA strikes could potentially range up to 1500-2000 nautical miles from China. In sufficient volume, these strikes could seriously challenge and disrupt U.S. presence in or around a conflict in the Asia-Pacific region.
The PLA’s modernization is propelled by China’s defense spending and technological development. Since the first full year of Xi Jinping’s term as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, China’s announced defense budget has nearly doubled. China continues to accelerate its development of military technology, including in military artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, and hypersonic missiles.
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