China’s test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile on July 6 took many by surprise. But amid the confusion about what the test signified, an interesting conversation was occurring. Was the missile a JL-2 or a JL-3? That open-source analysts were asking this question is a testament to just how much technical information about the People’s Liberation Army is now available to researchers.
The Cold War is often invoked as a comparison to U.S.-China relations today, but the massive Soviet military machine had to be monitored through a much darker and blurrier lens than China’s buildup. The old ways of intelligence collection have not been entirely superseded; astonishingly, modern versions of the U-2 spy planes that undertook perilous reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union still serve with the U.S. Air Force. But traditional tools of intelligence collection on foreign military forces are now being heavily supplemented by sources that are freely available on the internet.
Intelligence collection and analysis were once the exclusive purview of governments and research institutions. But the information revolution has produced a flourishing of open-source intelligence and a global community of military analysts. Their sleuthing is transforming our understanding of the biggest military modernization of any nation since World War II.
Beijing naturally likes to show off its military prowess, unveiling new technologies with fanfare. Last year’s military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, for instance, was a gold mine for analysts.
Sometimes these official releases reveal more than intended. Videos put out by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are parsed for minute details. Even a glimpse of background can be revealing, allowing for quick geolocation of the footage, which can hint at where new military equipment is based.
Despite the so-called “Great Firewall,” information emerges from unofficial sources on the Chinese internet as well. Shanghai’s naval shipyard is routinely photographed by passengers onboard passing airliners, revealing details of new ship designs. One such photo revealed that China’s next aircraft carrier is likely to be nuclear powered because two square voids built into the hull closely resemble reactor containment vessels.
A driver passing by an airfield recently took dashcam footage of a highly classified new fighter jet as it landed. We currently know more about China’s next-generation fighter ambitions than we do about the United States’ because numerous images of two Chinese prototypes have appeared online. Meanwhile, the United States’ F-47 remains shrouded in mystery.
That these images are posted online suggests that the firewall is not entirely secure. But there is likely to be some collusion going on, too, with Chinese authorities turning a blind eye to these unofficial releases because they recognize their propaganda value. After all, the influencers who spread these images are often motivated by nationalism, a desire to show off their nation’s progress.
There are clearly limits, however. Chinese social media military enthusiasts often practice self-censorship, blurring aircraft serial numbers and other sensitive details in the photos that they post.
Published scientific papers continue to reveal new areas of research with military applications. But another major new source of open-source intelligence is satellite photos. As launching and operating commercial satellites has become cheaper and the quality of imagery that they produce has improved, “geospatial” intelligence has ceased to be the purview of governments alone.
Companies including PlanetLabs, Vantor, and BlackSky provide a tasked satellite service for those who can afford it, while the U.S. Geological Survey’s EarthExplorer provides a free service updated by NASA’s Landsat program. Open-source satellite photos have allowed civilian researchers to track construction of everything from Chinese aircraft carriers to missile silos to China’s massive new military headquarters outside Beijing.
It’s not only China that wants to manipulate the information environment. The increasing capability of open-source intelligence offers opportunities for the United States, too. When media outlets, think tanks, or independent analysts reveal commercial satellite photos of previously unknown Chinese bases or weapons, it is wise to consider the possibility that the U.S. government has offered them some clues about where to look.
The boom in open-source intelligence on the PLA has broadened the spectrum of organizations and individuals making use of it.
Some of the most valuable work is being done by specialists in U.S. research organizations such the Rand Corporation, China Aerospace Studies Institute, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and China Maritime Studies Institute. Independent analysts such as Rick Joe, Andreas Rupprecht, and Alex Luck also parse the wealth of satellite information from Chinese shipyards and bases to examine the fine detail of its military expansion.
This ecosystem is a great illustration of how knowledge and expertise proliferate in the digital age. The internet has had many unintended consequences, and largely thanks to social media, the effects of the information revolution are now viewed with skepticism. But PLA watching is one area where the internet works largely as its early pioneers intended. It certainly has its share of propaganda and misinformation, but it also breaks down analytic silos and democratizes expertise by weakening the hold of gatekeepers who previously shut out specialists lacking formal credentials.
While PLA watchers have access to information about military platforms that would have made their predecessors working on the Soviet military envious, they do not have the same open and ready access to doctrinal, strategic, or logistical information. Researchers wanting to understand American thinking about such issues have no shortage of specialist publications available to them—from the Journal of Advanced Military Studies to the Army Lawyer. There are far fewer such publications available to China researchers, a major blind spot in the study of the PLA.
That’s why many of the advances in PLA open-source analysis have centered on assessing its capabilities—but not so much its intentions, which are harder to divine. Here we can draw on a classic distinction between puzzles and mysteries. The first is a problem with a definitive answer that can be unearthed with new information, while the latter has no definitive answer and additional information may not bring more certainty. An example of a puzzle would be, “How many bombers does China have?” whereas a mystery is, “What does China plan to do with them?”
Russia’s full-scale offensive against Ukraine illustrates how clarity about capabilities does not always help to improve decision-making. Despite clear evidence and warnings from the United States’ intelligence community, some Ukrainians and much of Europe refused to believe that Russia would invade. As a result, Moscow still achieved surprise.
This should be a sobering lesson for security authorities in Asia. We know a great deal about China’s capabilities to invade Taiwan. Beijing cannot disguise the rapid expansion of its short-range rocket and missile arsenal, and there is clear evidence that it plans to use civilian ferries in an invasion. Last year, we even saw photos of a fleet of mobile barges, which would allow China to put large numbers of heavy vehicles ashore over a beach.
Moreover, invading Taiwan would require months of preparation, including the prepositioning of a vast array of assets. In the present information environment, this would be impossible for China to hide, yet as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrated, this doesn’t necessarily translate to certainty about its objectives.
The task of understanding China’s intentions is not only more difficult than assessing its capabilities, but also more urgent. Capabilities can take decades to build and can therefore be studied in detail and at a certain leisure. A nation’s intentions, on the other hand, can change suddenly.
To understand what a state might do with its military assets, it is useful to understand what those assets can do. For instance, although China’s military is heavily focused on Taiwan, it is also building a fleet of ships and aircraft more suited to long-range power projection than to a cross-strait conflict—aircraft carriers and cruisers, large replenishment and amphibious assault ships, long-range bombers, and more. While these platforms would certainly have their uses in a Taiwan contingency, they are better suited to operations much farther afield.
China long ago abandoned Mao Zedong’s ambitions to foment communist revolution abroad. But the country’s military capabilities nevertheless point to ambitions beyond self-defense. In analyzing the military intentions of any foreign power, it is wise to follow Walter Gropius’s approach to architecture: Form follows function.
Recently, we published a report on the implications of China’s military modernization for the defense of Australia. We argued that China’s long-range strike capability is robust and growing. We deliberately avoided saying what China might do with this capability, but nonetheless, our report provoked a stern reaction from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which, according to the Global Times, argued that the report “tries to interpret China through the trite pattern that a great power is bound to seek hegemony.” This, Times reported, was a “grave strategic miscalculation.”
Whether deliberately or otherwise, China confused capability with intent. Our paper focused narrowly on how China could use force against Australia and said nothing about why it would ever do so. Whether one is hawkish or dovish about China, alarmist or complacent, this is important work. Good policy is built on a bedrock of facts. The intelligence analysts, think tankers, academics, and enthusiasts watching China’s rise as a military power all recognize the importance of this task but also understand its limitations for knowing what Beijing plans to do with its newfound power.
So if Beijing really does feel misunderstood, if it is so concerned about its intentions being interpreted correctly, then perhaps it could be a little more open about them. To quote China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, “Rumours cease when people are truly well-informed.”
