China's Nuclear Forces

A decade ago, many scholars and policy analysts who followed China dismissed the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as an antiquated force that was essentially infantry, fighting with decades-old weapons, poor communications, and World War II era doctrine. China's nuclear forces were also technologically outmoded and fixed to silo or tunnel launch sites. Very little information was available about China's "Second Artillery Corps," as China calls its strategic rocket forces. The United States knew that the PLA maintained a separate corps of rocket troops, but its doctrine and command and control structures remained shrouded in secrecy. Chinese diplomats, political leaders, and security thinkers regularly announced that China would adhere to a "no first use" policy, but very little published military information was available about how China intended to use its missile forces in crisis or war.