CHINA STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES - 13

INTRODUCTION
 This report explores the missions and organization of China's
military space enterprise, focusing on the organizational structure
of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Strategic Support Force
(SSF). Created on December 31, 2015, as part of a major
reorganization of China's military, the SSF is charged with
developing and employing most of the PLA's space capabilities.

 The PLA views cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare as

interconnected subcomponents of information warfare.
SFF’s creation signifies a shift in the PLA's prioritization of space
and an increased role for PLA space capabilities.
 Focus on the issue that PLA to fight informatized local wars and
counter U.S. military intervention in the region and essential for
supporting operations aimed at protecting China's emerging
interests in more-distant parts of the world.
 STRATEGIC SUPPORT FORCE (SFF): MISSIONS
 SFF was designed to better integrate space, cyber, and
electronic warfare capabilities into PLA operations.

 Tasked with the inherently joint mission of supporting all

services with its space, cyber, and electronic warfare capabilities.

 The SSF's C4ISR capabilities enable the PLA to effectively

conduct joint operations and successfully prosecute "system vs.
system" warfare, which it characterizes as essential to winning
modern wars.

 The SSF appears to be charged with launching and operating

China's satellite architecture, carrying out the co-orbital counter
space mission involving satellite-on-satellite attacks, and perhaps
other counter space missions.
 STRATEGIC SUPPORT FORCE (SFF): MISSIONS

Creation of the SSF made one organization responsible for the

development of the PLA's space and information warfare forces to
better integrate their capabilities into a joint force.

 Information warfare, including space warfare, long identified by

PLA analysts as a critical element of warfare, appears to have
entered a period of significant development that could critically
affect U.S. military operations.
 Including information warfare & space warfare, long identified
by PLA analysts as a critical element of future military operations,
for planning strategic operations.

 Emphasis on space and information warfare, long-range

precision strikes, and the requirements associated with
conducting operations at greater distances from China.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FORCE (SFF): ORGANIZATION

SFF

Space Systems Department Network Systems Department

Handles Space Warfare In Charge Of Both Cyber

And Electronic Warfare.
 STRATEGIC SUPPORT FORCE (SFF): ORGANIZATION

The force also is said to be leading the PLA's efforts to combine

Artificial Intelligence with large data sets for warfi ghting purposes.

PLA cyber espionage groups, like the five PLA members

indicted by the Justice Department for cyber espionage operations
in 2014, were combined in the new force.

The main military cyber spy unit was the Third Department of
the General Staff Department, known as 3PLA. That group and
the electronic warfare group, known as 4PLA, are believed now to
be part of the Network Systems Department.

 In addition to space and cyber warfare, the new force also is in

charge of political warfare and subsumed the PLA's 311 Base,
also known as the Three Warfares Base – the name for China's
information warfare doctrine that utilizes psychological warfare,
public opinion warfare and legal warfare.
 STRATEGIC SUPPORT FORCE (SFF): EMPLOYABILITY
 Harnessing outer space, the cyber domain, and the
electromagnetic spectrum—and denying their use to
adversaries—are paramount needs if the PLA is to attain
superiority in a conflict.
 Control the East and South China Seas by combining space-
based surveillance, satellite relay and communications, tracking
and navigation information.
 Long-range precision strike, far seas naval deployments, long-
range unmanned aerial vehicle reconnaissance, and strategic air
operations all rely to varying degrees on infrastructure over which
the SSF now wields exclusive control
 Enable the Chinese navy's effort to operate further from
China's coasts.
 Its role in anti-satellite missile operations, missile defense, and
space-based kinetic operations is unclear but it will have a critical
role in all those missions.
 IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
 While China’s more immediate and pressing concern is, no
doubt, mastery of and military superiority of its periphery – to
include the enduring imperative of Taiwanese reunification –
China’s expanding national interests forces the Central Military
Commission to set for itself a global, if not limited, force as an
ultimate objective.
 The SSF is likely an attempt to apply that success towards
information support and information warfare, a co-dependent
pairing on which the integrity of the PLA’s operations regionally
and globally increasingly rely.
 The Force allows the Central Military Commission (CMC) the
benefit of technological progress without attendant loss of control.
The preponderance of strategic capabilities and technical
intelligence under the force’s remit allows it to be wielded
alternatively empowering or controlling subordinate joint
commands and services.
 CONCLUSION
 Ultimately, the strategic support force needs to be understood
in the broader context of the reforms responsible for its creation.
One on hand, the reforms are practical, intending to usher China’s
military forces into the modern era and transform them into a force
capable of waging and winning “informatized local wars.” On the
other hand, the reforms are politically motivated, intending to
reassert party leadership to transform the PLA into a more
reliable, effective political instrument.
 With SFF the PLA may in the future declare the right to deny
or degrade spy satellites aimed at its territory, a move that could
bring it into conflict with the United States. The Pentagon has
declared that any interference with critical U.S. satellites would
lead to a forceful response.
 China is committing itself completely to information warfare,
foreign nations should take note and act accordingly.