HONG KONG: China effectively uses state-controlled media to artificially pump up the presumed capabilities of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) as part of an orchestrated campaign to dominate neighbors and would-be opponents. However, is the PLA as a magnificent fighting force as it first appears?

Certainly, the combat prowess of a military cannot be ascertained by spectacular parades through wide avenues of capital cities, nor in countless news articles boasting of military prowess. China is good at both these aforementioned methods, but would it be any good in a war?

The last war that China fought was its emasculated invasion of Vietnam in 1979. Incidentally, that war immediately exposes the lie that China likes to promulgate that it has never once invaded an inch of foreign soil. On that occasion, the PLA was soundly defeated and withdrew with its tail between its legs.

Of course, the PLA is a very different beast now compared to 1979. It benefits from the second-largest defense budget in the world, and it has been re-equipping at an astonishing rate as its trajectory moves from a continental military to a maritime power.

The effective combat power of the PLA is an important question for Asia and for others around the world, especially as Beijing displays a greater willingness to warmonger and to threaten.

David Stilwell, Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the US State Department, testified on 17 September, "Today we are engaging with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as it is, not as we wish it to be, or as it seeks to present itself rhetorically ... The CCP is now using any and all means to undermine the international rules-based order and project power across the world, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. All nations should worry how this outcome would negatively affect the global community and the values we share."

In the past few months alone, the world has witnessed Chinese violent advances along the Indian border, the splashdown of ballistic missiles in the South China Sea, continued bullying of South China Sea claimant nations, acute verbal and military threats against Taiwan, and boat swarms at the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands. Stilwell warned, "These are not the actions of a responsible global actor, but a lawless bully."

One expert who has examined the combat effectiveness of the PLA is Dr. Bates Gill, a professor at the Department of Security Studies and Criminology at Macquarie University in Australia. This year he delivered an assessment for the Royal United Services Institute containing his conclusions.

Gill believes the current make-up of the PLA is 2 million active-duty personnel, of which the ground force comprises just over 50%, the PLA Navy (PLAN) and Marine Corps some 12.5%, the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) 20%, the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) 6%, the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) 9%, and the remaining 4% is the Joint Logistics Support Force.

In addition, there are some 500,000 reserves, up to 40,000 contracted civilians and approximately 500,000 members of the People's Armed Police (including the China Coast Guard). Thus, China can field well over 3 million armed personnel.

The PLA is certainly ambitious. Under orders from Chairman Xi Jinping, it restructured heavily at the end of 2015 in the "most sweeping and potentially transformative reorganization in its history". China has helpfully given us some milestones, as the process will "comprehensively enhance the modernization of military theory, organization, personnel and weapons and equipment" by 2035, and subsequently build the PLA into a "world-class military" by 2049. Of course, 2049 has enormous symbolism since it represents the 100th anniversary of modern China's founding.

Such generalized and sweeping goals are difficult to imagine, so it is helpful to break them down into more bite-sized morsels. What will the PLA look like in 2035, then?

Gill expects the PLA could do the following: extend its anti-access/area-denial envelope farther beyond the First Island Chain; enhance its long-range strike capabilities, including hypersonic weapons; possess advanced undersea and amphibious warfighting capacities; and significantly improve its capabilities in cyberspace and outer-space operations.

The Australian-based academic added, "We expect that, over the next 5-15 years, with a strengthened PLA Navy, Chinese military activity will expand beyond the First Island Chain up to the Second Island Chain and beyond, increasing its footprint in the Southwest Pacific and the Indian Oceans. This longer-term strategic requirement for the PLA to project power beyond the First and Second Island Chains and into the Pacific and Indian Oceans raises serious questions and concerns about China's defense posture and strategic objectives."

One reason for PLA reforms relates to its primary role as the armed wing of the CCP. Gill wrote, "It should provide the power of the gun to ensure the CCP's legitimacy and survival. However, when Xi Jinping came to power as China's paramount leader in 2012, he considered the PLA had become too independent and corrupt under the former national leadership, so the reform program was introduced to reassert and strengthen the CCP's control over the Chinese armed forces."

Xi recognizes the PLA's ability to obfuscate and hide corruption. Furthermore, it has previously given Xi bad advice, such as when the PLAAF assured him that creating an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea would not garner negative attention. Total trust between Xi and the PLA does not exist, and this crack could easily widen in a conflict.

Xi's regular calls for greater party fealty demonstrate that the PLA is not yet what Xi wants it to be. Indeed, the military's political zeal, total subservience and ideological purity are far from satisfactory in Xi's eyes.

Chinese military leaders themselves admit difficulties in areas such as combat leadership, warfighting capability and party loyalty. To motivate the troops, they regularly come up with pithy slogans such the "two incompatibles", the "five incapables" and "peace disease" to drum up and sustain the pace of transformation.