China's top military plan off radar after US pilfer charge

A sudden veil of secrecy over China’s attempt to kick off the race for a “military of the future” by integrating its military and civil infrastructure and research development complex has raised global concerns over the intentions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The well-advertised “military-civil fusion” (MCF) strategy, said to be personally monitored by President Xi Jinping since 2015, has dropped from the radar in the last few months with no reference made to it in Chinese official announcements since last June. This follows a heightened scrutiny by the western intelligence agencies into the workings of the strategy. 

The MCF, though pursued earlier by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, came into its own under President Xi’s direction, supporting China’s ability by 2049 to prevail in a “long term strategic competition”. Xi’s defined MCF thus: “We must accelerate the formation of a full-element, multi-domain, and high-return military-civil fusion deep development pattern, and gradually build up China’s unified military-civil system of strategies and strategic capability.”

In the short-term, it is about creating a synergy between “central and local government regulatory agencies, military end-users, and defense, civilian, and commercial R&D ecosystems in critical domains”, according to defense experts. The long-term aim “is to unify the government’s various security and development strategies to create a strategic posture that can bring all of China’s capabilities to bear in competitions with other nations”.

A research paper, “China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy: Building a Strong Nation with a Strong Military” by Amrita Jash, published in the Centre for Land Warfare Studies in December, 2020 revealed the details of the military-civil nexus in six areas: “(1) fusing the China’s defence industrial base and its civilian technology and industrial base; (2) integrating and leveraging science and technology innovations across military and civilian sectors; (3) cultivating talent and blending military and civilian expertise and knowledge; (4) building military requirements into civilian infrastructure and leveraging civilian construction for military purposes; (5) leveraging civilian service and logistics capabilities for military purposes; and, (6) expanding and deepening China’s national defence mobilisation system to include all relevant aspects of its society and economy for use in competition and war.”

The MCF garnered global attention after it attracted American scrutiny “over concerns that American technology could be siphoned through trade and academic exchanges to bolster Chinese military’s modernisation”, as reported by the South China Morning Post. 

The American State department also released a white paper recently, airing its misgivings about MCF which it describes as MCF as “the CCP’s strategy to develop the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into a ‘world class military’ by 2049”. The paper openly charges the CCP of subterfuge in acquiring technology: “In a clandestine and non-transparent manner, the CCP is acquiring the intellectual property, key research, and technological advancements of the world’s citizens, researchers, scholars, and private industry in order to advance military aims.”
The State department believes the CCP plans to make China the first country to apply “Artificial Intelligence to next generation warfare (to) achieve military dominance and achieve a transition from traditional warfare to “intelligent warfare”.

Early this January, the Reuters agency exposed how “China’s BGI Group, the world’s largest genomics company, was collaborating with the Chinese military, likely providing them with access to foreign genetic data for their own research”. The Pentagon also divulged that leading e-commerce companies of China “are directly supporting the PLA by providing them with drones for logistics”. There were reports of Chinese shipping companies “contributing to cross-sea transport drills, providing capabilities that could be leveraged for an amphibious landing on Taiwan or in the South China Sea”.

The Americans suspect China is egging on its civilian firms to take up “classified research and get involved in weapons production”. The suspicions firmed up after President Xi formed the Central Commission for Integrated Military and Civilian Development and became its head. There are no records available of the commission’s meetings, if any. The CCP now stands accused of “adopting unlawful measures to bolster its own military”.

Alarms bells have started ringing in western intelligence agencies when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivered his government progress report to the National People’s Congress that omitted any “mention of the core Chinese military modernisation policy”. 

There are reports that the CCP no longer wants the MCF strategy to attract attention and is secretive about the details and pace of implementation. Professor Tai Ming Cheung, from the UC San Diego school of global policy and strategy was quoted by the media as saying that “military-civil fusion remains a top priority for the Xi regime, and perhaps even more so as China finds itself in an increasingly fierce and coupled techno-security competition with the US and its allies”.

Experts on China’s military believe that the final recommendations of the country’s 14th five-year plan through 2025 may have – away from international scrutiny -- focused on the MCF strategy “coordinated development in key regions and called for concerted efforts on national defense megaprojects”. They laid “renewed” emphasis on the development of the national defense mobilization system, “previously the least-well articulated part of the original MCF strategy”.