Congress’s China Military Report Warns of a Narrowing Window for Deterrence

For twenty-five years, Congress has required the Department of War to submit an annual assessment of military and security developments in the People’s Republic of China. Taken together, these reports document the steady, deliberate transformation of China’s armed forces from a regional defense force into a military designed to defeat the United States and dominate the Indo-Pacific. The most recent report makes clear that this transformation is well advanced, operationally tested, and increasingly directed at near-term warfighting objectives.

China’s strategic focus is on the First Island Chain, stretching from Japan through Taiwan to Southeast Asia. Beijing openly recognizes this arc as decisive terrain for regional control. At the same time, the report notes that as China’s economic power has grown, so too has its ambition to project military power beyond Asia, consistent with its stated goal of fielding a “world-class” military by 2049.

The People’s Liberation Army already measures its concepts, doctrine, and capabilities against what it calls the “strong enemy” of the United States and is organizing for what Chinese planners describe as national total war.

The report assesses that China’s historic military buildup has made the U.S. homeland increasingly vulnerable. Beijing now fields a large and expanding mix of nuclear forces, long-range conventional strike systems, advanced naval and air platforms, cyber capabilities, and space assets capable of directly threatening U.S. forces, allies, and critical infrastructure.

In 2024, Chinese cyber campaigns such as Volt Typhoon penetrated U.S. critical infrastructure, demonstrating the ability to disrupt military mobilization and impose costs on American society in the opening stages of a conflict.

Most significantly, the report concludes that the PLA is on track to meet its 2027 objectives, which include the ability to achieve a “strategic decisive victory” over Taiwan, establish a “strategic counterbalance” against the United States in nuclear and other strategic domains, and exert “strategic deterrence and control” over regional states. In plain terms, Beijing expects to be ready to invade Taiwan by the end of 2027.

To that end, the PLA has refined multiple options for forced unification, including amphibious invasion, large-scale missile and air strikes, and maritime blockade. Throughout 2024, Chinese forces rehearsed key elements of these options, including strikes on sea and land targets, attacks on U.S. forces in the Pacific, and the isolation of critical ports.

The report notes that Chinese strike systems now have the range to reach 1,500 to 2,000 nautical miles from the mainland, posing a serious challenge to U.S. force projection.

This military expansion is fueled by sustained defense spending and rapid technological development. Since the first full year of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s tenure, China’s announced defense budget has nearly doubled, while investment in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, hypersonic weapons, and space systems continues to accelerate.

Against this backdrop, the report states that under President Trump’s leadership, the United States seeks stability without illusion. Washington does not seek to dominate or humiliate China, nor to provoke confrontation. As laid out in President Trump’s National Security Strategy, the objective is deterrence through strength: denying any power the ability to dominate the Indo-Pacific or coerce U.S. allies. The Department of War emphasizes readiness, credible military power, and selective military-to-military communication with the PLA to reduce miscalculation while preserving U.S. freedom of action.

China’s national strategy centers on achieving what it calls the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049, a goal that combines expanded global influence with the creation of a world-class military capable of fighting and winning wars. This strategy defines three non-negotiable “core interests”: maintaining the ruling authority of the Chinese Communist Party, sustaining economic development, and defending and expanding China’s sovereignty and territorial claims.

Beijing has explicitly applied these core interests to Taiwan and to disputed territories in the South China Sea, the Senkaku Islands, and India’s Arunachal Pradesh, framing unification and territorial consolidation as a “natural requirement” of national rejuvenation. The Chinese Communist Party treats any perceived threat to its rule, or criticism of its defense of national interests, as existential, labeling dissenting political movements in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan as separatist forces allegedly backed by foreign powers. In CCP usage, the term “foreign powers” generally refers to the United States, which Beijing views as its primary strategic rival.

According to the report, China is preparing for high-end war against the United States, while the United States is attempting to prevent that war by making aggression irrational. U.S. deterrence rests first on military capability signaling: maintaining sufficient forces in the Indo-Pacific to defeat an invasion attempt without attempting to match China ship-for-ship.

Instead, the United States relies on qualitative advantages such as stealth submarines, fifth-generation aircraft, long-range precision strike, superior pilot training, and real combat experience. The capability gaps identified in the report, including submarine stealth, flight hours, and operational experience, are not abstractions. They are deterrence assets because they inject doubt into Beijing’s confidence that a war could be won quickly or cleanly.

Deterrence is further reinforced through alliance architecture. Coordination with Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and South Korea multiplies U.S. combat power and complicates Chinese planning. Initiatives such as AUKUS, which will provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, and expanded U.S. base access in the Philippines extend reach, resilience, and sustainment across the theater.

The United States also retains asymmetric advantages that are difficult to replicate. U.S. submarines can hunt China’s comparatively noisier fleet with relative freedom. American crews bring decades of combat experience that the PLA lacks, and U.S. pilots routinely log more than twice the flight hours of their Chinese counterparts.

The report frames deterrence in terms of denial and punishment. Deterrence by denial aims to convince Beijing that it cannot win, through the destruction of an invasion fleet or the loss of air superiority. Deterrence by punishment signals that even a nominal victory would come at catastrophic cost, including economic collapse, regime instability, and global isolation.

At the same time, the report acknowledges that China continues to improve its military capabilities across all domains. Whether peace is preserved will depend on whether deterrence holds as the People’s Liberation Army approaches its self-declared 2027 deadline.

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