On The Radar: China's military shakeup
24 April 2024
Last week, China’s military structure went through a major shakeup – its largest since 2015.
On Friday, April 19, President Xi Jinping unveiled a new military branch for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA): the Information Support Force (ISF).
The ISF will focus on communication networks and coordination within the PLA.
Alongside the new support force, the PLA’s existing branches of aerospace and cyber defense have been elevated under a new command structure and will function in parallel with the Information Support Force.
These two branches will also now report directly to the Central Military Commission – the highest defense body in the armed forces, chaired by Xi Jinping.
Altogether, this means the PLA now has four branches - Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force - as well as four arms - information, aerospace, cyber and joint logistics support.
The last major overhaul of the armed forces was in 2015, when the Strategic Support Force (SSF) was established. The SSF focused on cyber and electronic warfare, with an emphasis on space. But it was scrapped in favour of the ISF and the PLA’s other strategic branches, which together will expand on the SSF’s original mission.
Speaking to the Japan Times, Cao Weidong, a retired senior researcher at the PLA Naval Research Academy, said these changes would help China adapt to what he called the “informatization” conditions of warfare.
Information warfare is a field of massive change. While spy craft and protecting information have always been a part of war, the acceleration of new technology has had a dramatic impact on how it now operates.
Building up information capabilities is on the radar of all military forces – late last year, the US Pentagon revealed its strategy to build up “information forces”, while Australian military forces have stepped up its cyber warfare exercises.
Cyberwarfare made headlines in New Zealand as recently as March this year, when Minister Responsible for the GCSB Judith Collins revealed that New Zealand's Parliamentary Service and Parliamentary Counsel Office had been targeted in a China-linked 2021 cyberattack.
- Asia Media Centre
