By: Ahana Sarkar
In August 2023, China conducted hypersonic missile drills near Taiwan, manoeuvres that sent alarm bells ringing across Pentagon war rooms. Among the projectiles reportedly tested was the DF-27, a long-range, manoeuvrable missile capable of striking targets thousands of kilometres away, including U.S. military bases in the Indo-Pacific region. To many observers, the message was unmistakable: Beijing is no longer content with regional dominance; it is actively positioning itself as a global strategic peer to the United States.
At the heart of this ambition lies the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF), the successor to the Second Artillery Corps and a key pillar of China’s military modernisation since its rebranding in 2015. Tasked with both conventional and nuclear missile operations, the Rocket Force embodies China’s evolving doctrine of strategic deterrence, rapid escalation control, and anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) warfare. Its arsenal now includes advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), dual-capable medium-range missiles, and cutting-edge hypersonic glide vehicles, many of which threaten to outpace U.S. missile defences.
The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) is arguably the most critical arm of China’s military modernisation. Formally established in 2015 during sweeping PLA reforms, the Rocket Force was elevated from a branch of the ground forces (the Second Artillery Corps) to a full-fledged military service. This shift wasn’t merely bureaucratic; it signalled a growing Chinese emphasis on strategic deterrence and long-range strike capability.
Today, the Rocket Force operates across several missile brigades scattered throughout China, each housing underground facilities, mobile launcher units, and increasingly sophisticated command-and-control networks. It holds both conventional and nuclear missile forces, capable of engaging regional targets like Taiwan and Japan as well as intercontinental adversaries such as the United States. Its force structure and doctrine prioritise Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD); a strategy designed to prevent U.S. forces from operating freely in East Asia, particularly in a Taiwan contingency.
PLARF’s arsenal has become a showcase of China’s technological leaps. The DF-21D, dubbed the “carrier killer,” can target moving U.S. aircraft carriers. The DF-17, a hypersonic glide vehicle, poses new challenges to missile defence due to its speed and manoeuvrability. The DF-26 is a versatile system, capable of delivering both nuclear and conventional warheads, and aimed at both regional bases and U.S. assets in Guam. Meanwhile, the DF-41 ICBM, with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), significantly expands China’s nuclear reach.
What’s even more alarming is the strategic shift underpinning these capabilities. China’s traditional doctrine of “minimal deterrence” is being replaced by notions of “escalation control” and “war control”, ideas that suggest China wants to manage, not avoid, future conflicts. The 2021 discovery of over 200 new missile silos in Xinjiang and Gansu provinces, confirmed via satellite imagery, underscores this shift. Rather than signalling restraint, the Rocket Force now embodies a form of strategic coercion, blurring the line between deterrence and dominance.
In July 2023, China’s Rocket Force, the arm of the military tasked with operating the country’s most advanced and strategic missile systems, underwent a sudden and deeply unsettling purge. Without a public explanation, top leadership figures, including General Li Yuchao, the Rocket Force’s commander, and key deputies, were removed and placed under investigation. What made the event even more remarkable was not just who was purged, but who replaced them: individuals with no prior experience in the Rocket Force, such as Wang Houbin from the Navy and Xu Xisheng from the Air Force. The move triggered a flurry of speculation both inside and outside China, as analysts scrambled to understand why Xi Jinping would abruptly gut the very institution responsible for managing China’s nuclear deterrent and long-range strike capabilities.
One plausible explanation is corruption. Reports, including leaks from U.S. intelligence, pointed to major procurement scandals, missile silos filled with water instead of fuel, faulty components, and widespread misappropriation of military funds. But corruption alone doesn’t explain the scale and timing of the purge. Loyalty concerns appear to be equally central. Xi’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign has long served a dual purpose: punishing mismanagement while consolidating control over the military. In replacing experienced insiders with personal loyalists from other service branches, Xi signalled that political reliability may now outweigh professional competence in the most sensitive corners of China’s armed forces. Another possibility is that the purge was part of a broader strategic recalibration, aimed at tightening discipline within the military before a major regional crisis, perhaps related to Taiwan, escalates. Regardless of motive, the consequences are deeply troubling. The lack of transparency in the chain of command raises serious questions about who controls China’s nuclear arsenal and how decisions might be made in a crisis. In a force designed for rapid response and tight escalation control, gaps in leadership and institutional knowledge increase the risks of miscalculation.
From Washington’s vantage point, the evolution of China’s Rocket Force represents more than just another chapter in great-power competition; it is a genuine strategic disruptor. For decades, U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy operated on the assumption that China maintained a modest, restrained arsenal focused on “minimal deterrence.” That era is rapidly ending. As of 2023, Beijing is believed to have surpassed 500 nuclear warheads and is on track to more than triple its stockpile by 2035. This expansion, combined with the construction of hundreds of new missile silos and the deployment of mobile launch systems, means that China is no longer a secondary nuclear player but an emerging peer competitor with a credible second-strike capability. In a future conflict, Washington can no longer assume it will have escalation dominance or that Beijing’s nuclear use would be limited, slow, or predictable.
Even more alarming is China’s lead in hypersonic weapons technology, which further tilts the balance. In 2021, China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle that reportedly circled the globe before hitting its target, an act that U.S. officials admitted took them by surprise. While the U.S. continues to experiment with hypersonics, China appears to have operationalised multiple systems, including the DF-17. This creates a missile gap, not in numbers, but in time and precision. Beijing may be able to strike U.S. assets before defences are activated, undermining both deterrence and crisis management.
China’s ability to target U.S. forward-deployed forces is also a growing concern. Bases in Guam, Okinawa, and South Korea, as well as carrier strike groups operating in the Pacific, now fall within the range of various Rocket Force systems. This limits the U.S. military’s freedom of movement in the Indo-Pacific and complicates contingency planning, especially in the event of a Taiwan crisis. The Rocket Force’s speed of deployment, combined with its opaqueness, further compounds the danger. Without a clear doctrine of nuclear signalling, as exists between the U.S. and Russia, there is a significant risk that the U.S. could misinterpret a Chinese missile movement as preparation for war, when it may be meant as a bluff or deterrent.
China’s dramatic buildup of its Rocket Force has sent shockwaves far beyond Washington. The ripple effects are reshaping the security architecture of the entire Asia-Pacific region, prompting allied states to rethink their defence postures, deterrence strategies, and long-standing assumptions about U.S. security guarantees. Nations that once relied heavily on American military protection are now hedging against uncertainty. Japan, long constitutionally constrained, is in the midst of its most significant rearmament since World War II, including the acquisition of long-range strike capabilities and new missile systems. South Korea, while still under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, is now openly debating whether it should pursue its own nuclear deterrent, a discussion once confined to the political fringes. Meanwhile, Australia’s partnership in AUKUS reflects a deeper strategic recalibration, as Canberra moves toward acquiring nuclear-powered submarines and potentially developing its own long-range strike capabilities.
The United States, too, has begun adjusting to this new reality. The 2022 Nuclear Posture Review was the first to formally acknowledge that the U.S. must now contend with two near-peer nuclear competitors, China and Russia, simultaneously. In response, Washington is investing more heavily in missile defence, hypersonic programs, and INF-range missile systems previously prohibited under arms control agreements. The Pacific Deterrence Initiative, backed by growing congressional support, is pouring resources into forward deployments and alliance-based force integration.
But beneath these moves lies a deeper and more dangerous consequence: the erosion of strategic stability. As China’s Rocket Force becomes more advanced, more numerous, and more ambiguous in its deployment and doctrine, the risk of inadvertent escalation grows. In a high-stakes crisis, both sides may feel pressure to act first, whether to disable a perceived threat or to avoid losing launch capability in a first strike. The logic of “use it or lose it”, long a relic of Cold War instability, is returning in new, technologically sophisticated forms. And unlike the U.S.-Soviet model of arms control and crisis communication, the U.S.-China nuclear relationship lacks the transparency, mutual confidence, and institutionalised dialogue needed to manage such risks.
To fully understand the threat posed by China’s Rocket Force, it is important to consider counterarguments and to evaluate them critically. One common claim is that China’s missile buildup is fundamentally defensive, a response to what Beijing perceives as U.S. encirclement through alliances, missile defence systems, and freedom of navigation operations near its coast. While it is true that China views the United States as a strategic rival, defensive postures do not typically involve the construction of hundreds of new missile silos, the development of manoeuvrable hypersonic weapons, or the expansion of dual-capable missile systems capable of ambiguous signalling. These are tools of coercion and escalation, not simply deterrence.
Another argument holds that China is merely catching up. The United States, after all, still possesses a far larger nuclear arsenal. But this comparison misses the point. The concern is not raw numbers; it is the doctrinal ambiguity, the rapid modernisation, and the fusion of conventional and nuclear capabilities within the Rocket Force that make crisis management so dangerous. A missile launch from a dual-capable system like the DF-26 could provoke a disproportionate response simply because its payload is unknowable in real time.
Finally, some argue that the recent purges within the Rocket Force reveal internal weakness rather than growing strength. But this, too, is deceptive. Instability within a nuclear command structure is more alarming than comforting. The removal of experienced leadership, the imposition of political loyalists, and the absence of transparency only heighten the risks of miscalculation or unauthorised action during a crisis. The danger, therefore, lies not in China’s weakness but in its unpredictable strength.
China’s Rocket Force today represents far more than a modernisation of military hardware; it embodies a profound shift in strategic posture, political control, and global risk. No longer confined to the doctrine of minimal deterrence, the force has evolved into a multifaceted threat, equipped with hypersonic glide vehicles, dual-capable missile systems, and an expanding nuclear arsenal. But the true danger lies not only in the weapons themselves, but in the opacity, internal instability, and unchecked ambition that now define the Rocket Force’s trajectory. For the United States, this raises urgent questions, not just about how to deter Beijing, but how to avoid stumbling into a catastrophic miscalculation in an environment that is becoming more complex by the day.
In a world where artificial intelligence guides targeting systems, hypersonics reduce reaction time to minutes, and political purges fracture command continuity, the risk of a crisis spiralling into war is no longer hypothetical. It is disturbingly plausible. The more ambiguous China’s posture becomes, the more likely the United States is to misinterpret signals or respond with excessive caution or aggression.
To meet this challenge, the U.S. must adopt a balanced strategy: strengthening its own missile defence and deterrent capabilities while simultaneously investing in arms control diplomacy, crisis communication channels, and military-to-military dialogue. The Rocket Force can no longer be treated as a shadowy, marginal player; it is now a central force shaping the future of international security. Ignoring it would be a strategic error. Understanding and responding to it with clarity, caution, and resolve is not just prudent, it is essential.
