The U.S. Department of Defense’s 2015 Report On China’s Military Results In A Rebuke From China

Chinese People’s Liberation Army naval recruits shouting slogans during a parade at a military base in the port city of Qingdao.Credit China Daily, via Reuters

Ankit Panda, The Diplomat: What the Pentagon Thinks of China’s Military

The U.S. Department of Defense’s 2015 report on China’s military offers a detailed look into the PLA.

On Friday, May 8, the United States Department of Defense released its annual report to Congress on China’s military and security developments. The full report is available in PDF form here. The report offers helpful insight into the U.S. government’s threat perception of China’s military and the issues that are primarily shaping U.S. strategic thinking. After reading the report, the one major takeaway is that the United States is primarily concerned with China’s naval modernization. In fact, such is the emphasis on China’s navy, its maritime activities, and modernization, the People’s Liberation Army’s ground forces receive little mention, relegated to a few scattered paragraphs here and there. In this sense, the Pentagon’s 2015 report appears to be heavily influenced by the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence’s earlier report from this year (released for the first time in six years) which outlined China’s naval modernization in considerable detail.

WNU Editor: The U.S. Department of Defense’s 2015 report on China’s military is here (pdf version).

More News On The U.S. Department of Defense’s 2015 Report On China’s Military

What Does the Pentagon Think about China's Rising Military Might? -- Andrew Dickson, National Interest
Clear Strengths, Fuzzy Weaknesses In China’s Massive Military Build-Up -- WSJ
Pentagon Says China Willing To Tolerate More ‘Regional Tension’ To Expand Power And ‘Defeat Adversary Power’ Including US -- IBTimes
Q. and A.: Andrew S. Erickson on China’s Military Goals and Capabilities -- NYT
Pentagon: Chinese advances threaten U.S. military edge -- UPI
Crouching Tiger: US Suspects China of Global Military Ambitions -- Sputnik

Chinese Reaction To The Pentagon's Report On Their Military

What China Thinks of the Pentagon’s Report on the Chinese Military -- Franz-Stefan Gady, The Diplomat
China opposes U.S. annual report on Chinese military -- China Daily

China urges Pentagon to 'rationally' view military strength -- Want China Times
China Says U.S. ‘Hyping Up’ Its Military Threat, Damaging Trust -- Bloomberg
China hits out at Pentagon report on its military's development and security -- Economic Times/PTI
'Ditch Cold War mentality': China hits back at US DoD report -- RT
Commentary: Time for U.S.to call off biased attack on China's military development -- Chen Yu, CCTV