Inside China’s National Defense Mobilization Reform: Capacity Surveys, Mobilization Resources, and “New-Type” Militias

This report examines China’s national defense mobilization system, the national and international resources that authorities account for in national defense mobilization planning, and the emergence of "new-type" militia forces. The principal source for this report is a publicly available draft document authored by the Central Military Commission National Defense Mobilization Department, which Recorded Future found online in May 2021. This report also draws from news reporting and other Chinese-language sources, including government white papers and academic publications, to shed new light on the topics listed above. This report will be of most interest to governments, militaries, and researchers interested in China’s reserve force planning and organization, as well as those seeking to understand the economic, technological, and civilian resources that Beijing values in the context of national defense mobilization — an important aspect of military-civil fusion. The author, Devin Thorne, thanks Zoe Haver and Conor Kennedy for their insightful comments on early drafts of this report. Information about the author can be found at the end of the report.

Executive Summary

Near-continuous reforms to China’s national defense mobilization system over the past several decades have sought to strengthen the country’s capacity to counter threats to the party-state and homeland. The latest of these reforms is a new method of cataloging and accounting for the thousands of military and civilian resources that the party-state and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can bring to bear in upholding China’s sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, and security at home and abroad.

The first section of this report, A New Mobilization Planning System, introduces this new method and draws on a draft document authored by the National Defense Mobilization Department (NDMD) of the Central Military Commission (CMC) to shed unprecedented light on the full range of resources likely enrolled in ongoing military-civil fusion (MCF) mobilization efforts. These resources are located both in China and overseas and provide a window into how the authorities in China evaluate the country’s strategic posture; they include, but are not limited to, resources related to weapons research, maritime transport, cyber capabilities, public opinion guidance, natural resources, and space-based technologies.

China is already employing these resources to advance strategic goals. For example, China’s diplomatic missions, ports, and international companies are each tracked as national defense mobilization resources. They are almost certainly currently being used to support and sustain the international presence of PLA Navy (PLAN) vessels. When “the PLAN warship Changbaishan (长白山) docked at Laem Chabang port in Thailand in 2016”, Chinese enterprises carried out “berth choice, equipment unloading, and replenishment of the ship’s fresh water supply.

A general manager from one participating company referenced China’s National Defense Transportation Law, stating that Chinese companies have organized employee training sessions to learn about both the concept of national defense transportation and how to service China’s warships. Changbaishan’s commanding officer added that “wherever there is Chinese business, warships will have a transportation support point (交通保障点)”. The work of these enterprises was organized through the China’s embassy in Thailand. This type of interaction, in which civilian enterprises and their infrastructure is leveraged to support the PLA’s overseas presence, will likely form the basis of China’s development of “strategic strongpoints” (战略支点) at or near commercial ports around the world.

China’s overseas mobilization resources have also been used to augment domestic resources for coping with emergencies at home. For example, the CCP’s United Front-linked All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese issued a call for overseas Chinese persons to “donate money and goods; special medical consumables; protective equipment, including masks… protective caps, protective clothing, protective glasses, [and] disposable latex gloves” in late January 2020 to help China fight the COVID-19 pandemic at home. This initiative succeeded, with diaspora groups sending a reported 2.5 billion medical items to China by the end of February.

These calls went out through the mobile messaging app WeChat and were amplified by China’s consulates. To facilitate donations, some consulates took additional steps; the consulate in Los Angeles, California, coordinated a no-cost international shipping channel from the United States to China with 3 international Chinese logistics enterprises and “relevant airlines” in support of this effort. This dynamic can work in reverse as well, with Chinese civil-social organizations in China having organized medical supply donations to diaspora organizations overseas as well as to sister cities.

Another core part of national defense mobilization reform is the creation of increasingly specialized militia forces, an effort that began in the early 2000s but has accelerated under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping’s leadership. As documented in the second section of this report, China’s “New-Type” Militias, these forces are intended, at least at the conceptual level, to carry out emergency response tasks, support the needs of modern warfare, and help extend China’s military power into new strategic spaces such as cyberspace, outer space, and the polar regions. New-type militia forces are largely established by recruiting well-educated, higher-skill professionals from China’s civilian economy under the MCF strategic framework.

Although these forces continue to face challenges, they are involved in COVID-19 management in China, in the South China Sea disputes, in cyberspace capabilities development, and in other matters that affect the international community. In a Taiwan invasion scenario, many of China’s militia forces would likely have a range of missions, including air defense on the mainland, general logistics support on land and potentially at sea, and cyber and psychological warfare operations. In this context, reference in the CMC NDMD’s documentation to roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ship modification units is notable.

Research by other analysts has shown that the PLA Navy is conducting amphibious military exercises involving RORO vessels, likely in preparation for a Taiwan invasion. These exercises “move beyond benign logistics” to include “RO-RO ferries working in concert with larger PLAN amphibious assault ships, deploying first echelon forces offshore in beach landing operations”. Some vessels partaking in such exercises have been specifically converted after construction and equipped with new ramps that are designed to better withstand waves and facilitate deployment of amphibious military vehicles at sea. (RORO) ship modification militia units would likely support this work.

Monitoring militia development as well as the broader pool of mobilization resources available to the party-state and PLA both in China and around the world is, thus, a prerequisite for adequate policy and defense planning among members of the international community concerned with China’s armed forces modernization and national defense activities.

Key Judgments

• The national defense mobilization resources identified in this report will almost certainly play a role in the future domestic and international activities of China’s armed forces, as well as enhance the PLA’s capacity to operate globally, including in cyberspace.
• By standardizing the categories of, and data collection templates for, national defense mobilization resources, the newly implemented resource accounting method is likely to strengthen China’s peacetime and wartime preparedness and the efficacy of its crisis and conflict management efforts.
• New-type militia construction and related reforms seek to streamline and upskill China’s militia forces, not expand their overall number, and will likely enhance the value of the militia as a supporting force for the PLA in future conflicts, though significant challenges remain.
• Looking to the future, new-type militia force construction will likely focus on maritime reconnaissance, transport, and search and rescue; border and coastal defense, including escort and language interpretation; network (cyber) space capabilities, including network attack and public opinion guidance; and various activities related to intelligence collection, specialized military equipment support, and strategic frontier operations; among other areas.

Editor’s Note: This post is an excerpt of a full report. To read the entire analysis, click here to download the report as a PDF.

Note: This report summary was first published on March 10, 2022 and has been updated on October 30, 2024. The original analysis and findings remain unchanged.