China's corruption problem has blunted military modernization efforts, US says

The Chinese military is struggling to contain corruption issues across its ranks, an issue that threatens to undermine its modernization efforts, a Pentagon report said Wednesday.

The congressionally mandated report, which looks at China's military efforts through 2023, said a wave of senior-level corruption last year may have disrupted the 2027 modernization goals of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the formal name for Beijing's armed forces.

Between July and December 2023, at least 15 high-ranking military officers and defense industry executives were removed from their posts, according to the Pentagon, including Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu in October of that year.

Several of the removed officials oversaw projects for modernizing China’s ground-based nuclear and conventional missiles.

A U.S. official described the issue as a "deeply rooted problem of corruption."

"The substantial problems they have with corruption that have yet to be resolved certainly could slow them down on the path toward the 2027 capabilities development milestone and beyond," the official said.

"That frequent turnover and replacement of high-level personnel certainly can be disruptive," the official added, while uncovering corruption in a particular sector in the defense industry "can have the effect of slowing them down as they try to conduct thorough investigations and try to understand the depth and the extent of corruption in a particular case."

The PLA is also struggling with the perception of shortcomings with commanders who are considered unable to make quick judgements or operational decisions, while its modernization efforts are also lacking with the tactics of urban warfare and long-distance logistics, the official said.

Still, the official explained that the PLA's military branches are overall "making steady and incremental progress toward their respective modernization goals."

The report captures a wide breadth of China's push to modernize its military, improving its navy and air force and bolstering its nuclear arsenal with new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

China now has more than 600 operational nuclear warheads as of mid-2024 and is on pace to have at least 1,000 by 2030. The Pentagon said some of China's nuclear capabilities are expanding and going beyond Beijing's stated nuclear deterrence goals.

And China is focused on partnering with civilian industry to advance critical technology for the military, including hypersonics, a technology it is leading on, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence-powered weapons or systems.

Beijing also spends much more on its defense budget than public estimates, according to the Pentagon, which estimates China's military spending between $330 billion–$450 billion in 2024.

China is struggling with its economy, which may slow defense budget growth in the future, the U.S. official said.

"I don't think we're in a situation where [China] would be truly hard-pressed to continue to fund its defense modernization at levels of what we've seen in recent years," the person said. "But I do think that slowing growth would inevitably cause them to think more about tradeoffs, what they're going to prioritize, what they're going to de-prioritize."

China's total armed forces number more than 3 million with 965,000 active-duty troops, according to the Pentagon report. The Chinese air force has 3,150 total aircraft.

The Chinese navy, the largest in the world, has more than 370 ships and submarines and is expected to grow to 395 ships by 2025 and 435 ships by 2030, the report says.

The U.S. has warned that China is engaging in the largest peacetime buildup since World War II and seeks to have a world-class military by 2049.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has set 2027 as the target to be ready for a potential attack on the self-governing island nation of Taiwan, which Beijing sees as part of the mainland. The U.S. has informal relations with Taiwan but commits to supporting the nation, including with arms.

A third part of the modernization goal is 2035, the date China wants its military to be fully modernized.

The official described the U.S. focus on China's military as to "how they're able to employ the new capabilities that they're developing."

"We're concerned about that and making sure that we're staying ahead of that facing challenge," the official said.

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