People's Liberation Army (PLA) serves the communist party of China (CCP) and still acts as military wing of Party whose warfighting strategies, doctrines, theories and tactics have been consistently and continuously guided, shaped and controlled by party and its leadership specially Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping. Broad guiding principles of PLA’s approach to warfare includes ‘Sinicization of Marxism’ to include thoughts of Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, 3 war strategy, Xi Jinping Thoughts on Chinese style modernization.
Note: Image representation is generated by Google Gemini and may deviate from true facts/figures.
PLA started reforming its military strategy including tactics since the time of ‘The Long March’ (1934-35) and more precisely from 2nd Chinese civil war. Mao Zedong’s led communist forces (Red Army established in 1927 and renamed as PLA in 1947) proclaimed war against nationalists (Kumitong-KMT) to establish democratic coalition government representing the Chinese people.
In 1946 – 47, PLA shifted from guerrilla warfare to large scale combat Ops (LSCO) with PLA’s rapid transformation across mil doctrine, organization, material, leadership and education, personnel, and faster training effort aimed at preparing the PLA for LSCO e.g. Lin Biao’s six principles of combat, establishment of Arty & Signal schools, military college.
PLA’s current (since 2015) military modernization efforts to become world class military by 2049 in some ways followed the blueprint laid out in 1947 to improve in man, material and approach to warfare.
Capability development for multi domain joint integrated operations (MDJIO) through –
• Development of new age/generation equipment (NGEs) & technology (NTEs) development e.g. AI, Unmanned systems (drones, UGVs), quantum communication, quantum radar, long range hypersonic ballistic missiles.
• Integration of NGEs & NTEs with conventional warfare tactics and training at sub unit level.
• Network centric warfare for achieving simultaneity across all the domains of warfare through real-time situational awareness to decrease the OODA loop.
• During Galwan standoff (2020), PLA used dual-use villages for force prepositioning, Beidou satellite systems for precision artillery and WeChat disinformation to shape narratives while massing conventional forces.
CCP's focus on Cognitive Domain Operations(CDOs)
• China’s is actively pursuing Three warfare strategy, namely public opinion warfare,
psychological warfare and legal warfare and has officially incorporated into the PLA’s education, training, and preparation for military struggle.
• PLA theorist Zeng Huafeng of the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) envisioned in his article
that “information and popular spiritual and cultural products can be used as weapons to influence people’s psychology, will, attitude, behaviour and even change the ideology, values, cultural traditions and social systems,” and “targeting individuals, groups, countries, and even people around the world.”
• Zeng identified four tactics to win “mind superiority” in the cognitive space: first is
“perception manipulation” through propaganda narratives; second “cutting off historical memory” so that targets will be open to new values; third “changing the paradigm of thinking” by targeting elites to change their ideology; and fourth “deconstructing symbols” to challenge national identity.
Lawfare as war strategy
• Land border law (2022), National Defence Mobilization Law (2026), Ethnic Unity Law (2026) is the latest attempt to codify and internationalize China’s cultural security.
New training, tactics & likely war strategy
• In training, PLAGF found that use of robot wolves complements the three-three system, equipping a squad with 3 robot wolves, one for each fire team. One training iteration with the PLAGF’s 76th Group Army saw a squad using a robot wolf carrying a thermal imager and a laser rangefinder, another carrying machine guns and grenade launchers, and the
final wolf carrying anti-tank and anti-air equipment.
• China has converted over 200 obsolete J-6 fighter jets into one-way attack drones with automatic flight control systems.
• PLA is also continuing to develop swarm-capable systems for example; PLA’s “Atlas” drone swarm system, can coordinate 96 drones while a single Atlas launcher can deploy 48 drones. In 2025, China has also completed its first flight of Jiutian (drone mothership), world’s largest unmanned aircraft, designed as a high-altitude mothership capable of carrying and deploying large drone swarms.
• MUM-T: PLA assesses that MUM-T will be a defining feature of future combat activities involving intelligent systems and is in the nascent stages of developing operational concepts to integrate MUM-T
into its existing doctrine. In June 2026, PLAN used drones for a mine clearance exercise.
• PLA likely will adopt dissipative warfare (form of intelligentized warfare) to some degree. For the PLA in the AI era, dissipative warfare could be the theory that replaces attrition with a strategy focused on maintaining internal order and creating disorder in an adversary’s
system.
- Nitin Pratap Singh
Note: Chronology of assessment of PLA's war fighting strategy is based on author's own understanding.
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