New Five-Year Plan Could Boost PLA Combat Power
K. Tristan Tang
Executive Summary:
The Outline of its 15th Five-Year Plan contains new development priorities for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) through 2030, as well as a high degree of continuity with directives from previous plans.
This iteration adds a section on military governance, in addition to the recurring focus on combat capability and military–civil fusion, and emphasizes military theory, military governance, and “spin-on” mechanisms for facilitating the integration of civilian technologies into the PLA.
The repeated appearance of policies that have existed for years highlights the limited effectiveness of past reforms. The Outline’s release has been accompanied by a number of specific regulations and implementation mechanisms to further obligate compliance with policy directives.
If fully implemented, the defense-related aspects of the 15th Five-Year Plan could significantly grow the PLA’s combat capability, especially in military–civil fusion and joint operations and exceed prior observed growth.
On March 13, the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) released the Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (国民经济和社会发展第十五个五年规划纲要) (Xinhua, March 13). As with all five-year plans, the outline included a chapter on national defense; but unlike the defense-related chapters of previous plans, whose content often overlap substantially, this latest plan contains new and different material.
Chapter 15 in the plan’s outline contains two “sections” (章)—sections 55 and 56—of which the former contains two additional “subsections” (节). These prioritize advancing military theory, military governance, and military–civil fusion. They also establish relevant regulations to ensure implementation that, if done effectively, could bolster the country’s military strength significantly over the next five years, building on progress made in the past decade.
New Focus on Military Governance and Enhanced Military–Civil Fusion Efforts
Five-year plans are traditionally finalized during the Two Sessions meetings in March, but are preceded by several months with the publication of a set of recommendations from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan contains changes from both the recommendations released in November 2025 and the outlines of the 14th and 13th five-year plans (see Table 1 below) (Xinhua, March 17, 2016; March 13, 2021; March 28, 2025; March 13).
Table 1: Comparison of Defense-Related Content in Xi-era Five-Year Plans
One key difference with previous five-year plans is the inclusion of a subsection on military governance, which is titled “promoting the modernization of military governance” (推进军事治理现代化). Some of the subsection’s content overlaps with that contained in previous plans, but pulling this content together into a dedicated subsection is significant, and stands in contrast with sections and subsections covering combat capability and military–civil fusion, which largely repeat earlier language and include few new developments. [1] New material in this subsection includes mentions of the military leadership and management system and mechanism, strategic management (covered below), and military budget management.
Other items that appear for the first time in a five-year plan since General Secretary Xi Jinping came to power represent key focus areas for force development within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). For instance, a subsection on “accelerating the construction of advanced combat forces” (加快先进战斗力建设) references unmanned and intelligent warfare, upgrades to and the transformation of traditional combat forces, the development of data resources, and an intelligentized military system. Section 56 on military–civil fusion, meanwhile, discusses for the first time the submission of military requirements for defense development and military–civil coordination, integrated planning between military and local strategic plans, the improvement of “green channels” (绿色通道) to accelerate the “spin-on” (民参军) of cutting-edge technologies from the civilian sector for military use, and protection capabilities for critical targets. [2]
Some parts of the section on military–civil fusion were novel additions, even from the Central Committee recommendations released in November. These include language consolidating existing priorities such as resource sharing, military–civil integration, peacetime–wartime integration, and service member protections. These updates appear to originate more from local governments and enterprises than from senior military leadership. The PLA operates as a central institution and bears primary responsibility for national defense development, so the original recommendations likely come primarily from the military. At the same time, however, military–civil fusion, especially spin-on efforts, often faces constraints because civilian firms remain excluded from participation in the defense industrial chain for various reasons. This suggests persistent issues within the military equipment and military–civil fusion systems despite recent purges in the Equipment Development Department that have sought to resolve such issues (Xinhua, March 30).
Reforms Flagged in Operations, Governance, and Military-Civil Fusion
Three items that appear in the plan’s outline merit particular attention: military theory (军事理论), strategic management (战略管理), and green channels for spin-on (民参军绿色信道).
Military theory has appeared in previous five-year plans, but its persistence in the latest plan indicates that senior leadership does not feel satisfied with past modernization efforts. Calls in the plan’s outline to “implement a military theory modernization advancement program” (实施军事理论现代化推进工程) appear in addition to language from the previous plan’s outline to “accelerate the modernization of military theory” (加快军事理论现代化). This suggests that the leadership remains dissatisfied with the development of military theory to date. Modernization of military theory goes beyond academic development, and will drive major changes in the PLA’s operational concepts and doctrine over the next several years. According to the authoritative reference publication PLA Military Terminology (中国人民解放军军语), military theory is a system of rational understanding and knowledge regarding war and national defense issues; it emerges from, guides, and undergoes validation through military practice.
The calls for modernizing military theory likely foreshadow changes to military practice in the coming years. [3] This is because modernizing military theory involves deepening “strategic and operational design” (战略和作战筹划), signaling potential shifts in PLA operational concepts and doctrine. In PLA terminology, strategic design refers to planning guiding principles and strategies for war or other emergencies and contingencies, while operational design refers to the planning and orchestration of operations conducted by commanders, including operational objectives, force disposition, and tactics based on comprehensive situation analysis, forming the basic operations concepts. [4] The inclusion of this phrase in the plan likely relates to the PLA’s ongoing military training reform, especially its current exploration of joint operations training models (China Brief, January 24; January 26; CLSC Quick Takes, February 12).
Changes in military theory—including in strategic and operational design—will therefore be reflected in shifts in practice and doctrine. Given that the PLA is currently pursuing reform and experimentation due to dissatisfaction with its current joint operations model, future PLA operational patterns likely will differ from those observed in recent years. Efforts by the PLA National Defense University to develop and train joint operations, as well as joint operations training conducted by frontline theater forces, demonstrate that the military is already implementing this shift (PLA Daily, March 7; March 29). “Regulations on Military Theory Work” (军事理论工作条例) took effect on March 1 and support this effort by stipulating guiding principles, annual plans, and organizational procedures for its development (Xinhua, January 22).
A second area mooted for reform is “strategic management,” which indicates that the Chinese military seeks to strengthen the management of the PLA in a more focused manner. Strategic management appears in the military governance subsection of the outline and marks its first inclusion in a Xi-era five-year plan. In PLA terminology, strategic management refers to a series of activities conducted by senior military leadership to plan, organize, coordinate, and control the overall development of military building. This includes strategic forecasting, planning, and assessment. [5] Its inclusion is not necessarily a surprise, as Xi publicly emphasized strategic managements while formulating the previous 14th Five-Year Plan; but it represents a step beyond previous military development planning reforms. More surprising was the fact that it was not formally included in the 14th Five-Year Plan, which instead referred to “military management” (军事管理), while strategic management in practice serves as the core of military management and provides macro-level and directional guidance. This was despite a June 2020 strategic management training session for the entire military (全军战略管理集训) that focused on implementing the 13th Five-Year Plan and formulating the 14th (PLA Daily, June 19, 2020).
The new outline calls for “strengthening and improving” (加强和改进) strategic management. This signals that the entire military development process, from future forecasting to budget execution, will undergo reform. According to a military expert writing in the PLA Daily in 2022, the strategic management cycle spans “requirements–planning–budgeting–execution–assessment” (需求-规划-预算-执行-评估) and is intended to operate continuously with ongoing adjustments (PLA Daily, November 3, 2022). Improving this cycle will lead to deeper integration of operations, force development, and readiness, stronger demand-driven planning, enhanced military system efficiency, military budget reform, and a more robust military development assessment system.
The third notable addition to the outline is the reference to “green channels” for the “spin-on” of civilian technologies into the military. This aims to step up support for civilian participation in military programs, despite years of military–civil fusion and defense industry reform. Civilian involvement in military development has been a core policy goal of Xi’s since the established the Military–Civil Fusion Development Commission in 2017, but progress has lagged as many core policies have not advanced smoothly (China Brief, January 19, 2023; April 14, 2023; March 19, 2025). The PLA Dailywarned of implementation issues as far back as 2019, noting that uptake was slow or even stalling in some regions, despite, in theory, full civilian access to participation in military programs (PLA Daily, March 2, 2019). By 2025, policies to encourage participation were still optimizing qualification certification procedures and improving channels to leverage local resources for national defense and military development (PLA Daily, March 10, 2025). The 15th Five-Year Plan’s emphasis on improving green channels seeks to streamline and accelerate specific types of civilian participation in military programs—exceptional measures that hint at persistent obstacles to civilian participation within the system.
More Stringent Implementation Preparations Compared to Previous Iterations
One reading of the latest outline is that progress has been slow in areas highlighted in previous plans, hence the promotion of more fundamental approaches and comprehensive supporting measures. Policies relating to military theory, military governance, and military–civil fusion have been in place for many years; but while long-term policy promotion allows for stability in force development, it also indicates that past policies have failed to achieve expected results.
A series of recent regulations demonstrate Xi’s commitment to addressing these issues more thoroughly. These set out relevant supporting measures with a level of clarity that reduces the room for superficial compliance or resistance in the chain of command. For instance, the Regulations on Military Theory Work establishes standards for theory development, including metrics to assess contributions to combat effectiveness (People’s Daily, January 23; PLA Daily, January 30). These developments are likely the outcome of an October 2024 military theory work conference, but the timing of the announcement of the regulations, which took effect the same week as the Two Sessions began this year, reinforces their importance for the next five-year plan period (Xinhua, October 15, 2024). The sections on military governance and military–civil fusion are similarly reinforced by regulations enacted since the start of 2026. These include the “full-process supervision measures for military fuel support” (军队油料保障全流程监管措施), the “provisions on approval authority and procedures for disciplinary actions by military Party organizations” (军队党组织实施党纪处分批准权限和程序规定), and efforts to strengthen litigation efficiency between the military and local procuratorial organs (PLA Daily, January 27, February 3, February 7, March 9).
Conclusion
Five-year plans always include objectives that are never fully implemented within the five-year window. This may explain why sections related to national defense and the military typically show a high degree of continuity with previous iterations. For the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Xi Jinping has made additional efforts to ensure the defense-related prioritizes are achieved by pairing policy statements with specific regulations—concrete rules that obligate policy implementation. Adhering to policy objectives has also been reinforced by recent purges of senior officers, which to some extent have reduced the potential for superficial compliance or resistance by demonstrating the consequences of disobedience.
Military planners should always work on the assumption that they will face a capable adversary, in order to maximize the chances of prevailing in a potential conflict. If the 2026–2030 Five-Year Plan achieves a higher level of success in its implementation than previous iterations, the PRC’s military capabilities, especially in joint operations and military–civil fusion, could see another significant leap. Such leaps could exceed current expectations, given that the substantial progress seen in the past decade occurred despite inefficiencies in the military system.
This article originally appeared in China Brief. Check it out here!
K. Tristan Tang is a co-founder of the Taiwan Defense Studies Initiative (TDSI) and serves as Project Lead for Wargaming, as well as the designer of KTT’s Wargame. He is also a Nonresident Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research and a Nonresident Vasey Fellow and Young Leader at the Pacific Forum. In addition, he serves as an Associate Fellow at the Secure Taiwan Associate Corporation and an Associate Fellow at the Center for China Studies at National Taiwan University. His research focuses on China’s defense industry, the People’s Liberation Army, and Chinese foreign policy. You can connect with him on X: @KTristanTang.
Notes
[1] Much of the military-related content in the latest plan is rolled over from previous iterations. This in part indicates continuity in national defense development priorities. The section on combat capability, for instance, discusses strategic deterrence, new-domain and new-type operational forces, networked information systems, military theory, strategic and operational planning, and realistic combat training, among others. The military governance section, meanwhile, references the military procurement system and rule by law in the military, and the military–civil fusion section addresses topics such as the national defense science, technology, and industrial system, standardization between military and civilian sectors, full integration of national defense requirements into major infrastructure, national defense mobilization capability, nationwide defense education, sharing of military and local resources and factors, and military–civil integration.
[2] The PRC views MCF as implementing a bidirectional flow of technology via “mutual transformation systems for military and civilian science and technology achievements” (推动军民科技成果相互转化体系建设). These systems facilitate the “spin on” (民参军) of civilian technologies into the military, as well as the “spin off” (军转民) of military technologies into civilian applications (MOST, April 12, 2017; Weinstein, March 19, 2021).
[3] Academy of Military Science [军事科学院], ed. Military Terminology of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army [中国人民解放军军语]. (Beijing: Junshi kexue chubanshe, 2011), p.1.
[4] Ibid., p.54, p.179.
[5] Ibid., p.52.