What China's Demographics Mean for Its Military

Deanna Lee

You're listening to Policy Minded. I'm Deanna Lee.

China is working to modernize its military. At the same time, the Chinese population is aging rapidly and declining. What happens when China's military aspirations collide with these two trends? We'll tackle that question in today's episode.

Our guest is Mark Cozad, the lead author of a recent RAND report that explores how China's shifting demographics could shape the future of its military power. And what it all might mean for the United States and for global security. Mark, welcome.

Mark Cozad

Thank you for having me.

Deanna Lee

Thanks for being here. Okay, let's start with demographics in China. As I just mentioned, China's population is aging rapidly and the population overall has also decreased in size for three years in a row. This is all despite China's efforts to boost fertility. What's going on here?

Mark Cozad

China is faced with coming out of a period of the one-child policy, where there are a number of different economic and social factors that are influencing the extent to which and the incentives under which people actually want to start families and have more kids than they were allowed to in the past. One of the things that we're seeing now is that due to the prohibitive costs on rising expenses in major urban areas. The desire for many young couples to actually get married and then also to have children is diminishing. So what you're seeing is that, even by choice, after the policy was lifted, you're finding fewer and fewer young Chinese willing to start families with more children, and they are generally adhering to either one or no children.

Deanna Lee

And China isn't alone in these demographic trends, right? I know many other countries are experiencing the same thing. I read an article this morning, actually, that called it a global issue. I'm wondering how China's experience with these trends compares to other countries, like the United States, for example.

Mark Cozad

It's actually similar, and when we think about it in the context of China's economy as well as its military, you have multiple analogs, I think, that are useful examples. So if you look at Western Europe, if you looked at Russia, or even also in East Asia with Korea and Japan, what you're starting to see is fertility rates that are well below the replacement level and also declining populations in most of those places.

The United States has several similar characteristics. However, the immigration that the United States has allowed and been permissive on over the past several decades has mitigated this problem to a certain extent, probably more so than any other country that we can point to in those groupings. So I think the United States is, at least for now, in a little different category than those. But again, it's a problem for the economies as we start thinking about the number of workers available, the age of the population. Most of these societies are also aging. And then the social responsibilities that go along with that. So it's a drain on resources. It also has an impact on economic productivity and then also availability for the number of people who might be able to serve in the military.

Deanna Lee

And let's let's get into that. The modernization of China's military is the other core focus area of this study that we're discussing today. And China has been aiming to modernize its military, also known as the People's Liberation Army or the PLA, for several decades now, right? Can you give you give us an overview of what it's been aiming to do.

Mark Cozad

So their modernization has looked differently depending on the primary threat that they've been focused on, as well as the period under which it's been happening. So if you go back to the 1980s, which is a period of real attempts at reform, they were very focused on the Soviet Union and the type of war that they expected to fight against the Soviet Union, which was largely mechanized and required very large numbers of people and equipment, and they're very northerly focused.

As they got out of the 1980s—and we saw the after effects of Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in 1991—they judged that the modernization efforts that they had underway were not really sufficient for this new type of war that they witnessed in the Middle East. And so for the past three decades, they have undergone a series of iterative development processes that have focused first on what they call digitalization. So that's essentially getting the PLA focused on this digital army—one that's able to use electronic equipment, one that's able to use more and more types of gadgets, if you will, like night division devices. Devices was one area, but any number of things that allowed them to operate more efficiently.

And that moved into informatization after Operation Allied Force in 1999. And that was largely focused on being able to use advanced sensors and information systems to be able to coordinate activities and attacks and employ precision to the point now where they're starting to talk about a development period for a intelligentization, which is taking advantage of new developments in information processing and technology, most notably with artificial intelligence and being able to embed that into the types of weapons systems and also command and control systems that they're building into the military at this point.

Deanna Lee

And can you give us an idea of where exactly the PLA stands today? I'm also wondering what Xi Jinping's vision is for the future of China's military.

Mark Cozad

So as I mentioned, the modernization effort has really gone on in several different phases. And the way that I think about it is if we were to go back to the 1990s, the PLA really needed to focus on both technology as well as institutional reform. But its most dire need at that point was focused on technology, being able to develop advanced weapons systems and also the technologies behind those. I think as we get into the 2010s, that shifts a little bit. They were very successful in the types of technologies that they were able to bring into their inventory and the types things they were able to develop and get access to.

And now the problem is much more focused on institutional reform. So this is how you bring all these capabilities together, knit them into one coherent operational system, and then make the PLA operate efficiently with these new technologies in a combat environment. So that portion of it really goes across a lot of different areas. So when we start looking at things like corruption, political reliability, proficiency, those are all things that have been major emphasis areas for Xi since he came to the Central Military Commission in 2012. And so that's really, I would say, where Xi is trying to take things at this point is really trying to push through those institutional reforms. In trying to make the PLA not just a technologically competent military, but also one that is operationally proficient and politically reliable.

Deanna Lee

Now, thinking about these institutional reforms in the context of people, maybe that brings us back to the demographic challenges or the demographic trends, rather, that we spoke about earlier. How do China's demographic trends affect its efforts to modernize the PLA?

Mark Cozad

Well, one of the main requirements for being able to achieve these modernization objectives is to have a technically proficient force. So you have to bring people into the military who have STEM backgrounds, who have some sort of technical skills. They have to be able to not only maintain, but also be able operate and build the types of systems that are coming into the PLA. So that's really been one of the big pushes.

The other part of that is on the operational side of things. Xi has really been trying to push the PLA to become more operationally proficient. The more technologically advanced your military is, the more technical skills are required. So, in looking at the demographic issues that face China, one of the things we discussed in the report was that there are plenty of recruits available—I mean, their cohorts of recruits are still enormous. There are a lot of parts of the population they can pull on. The question is, are they able to get access to the more technically capable recruits who are coming out of colleges? And that's where you start seeing some of the push and pull with the civilian economy and some incentives for not wanting to go in the military but actually to pursue more lucrative careers in industry or technology.

Deanna Lee

What are some of the specific ways that Beijing is trying to close that gap between getting the soldiers and individuals to join the military that it needs and the reality that its population is aging ... and there just maybe aren't as many folks available?

Mark Cozad

So they have specific programs that they put into place to incentivize people to come into the military. They've looked at bonuses for people entering. They've looked at bonuses for people who want to stay. They've also looked at paying for college certifications and other educational programs in order to incentivize them to come in to the PLA. So those are really some of the big ones. They're also trying to, just more broadly in the PLA, make it a more attractive option for for young people. Trying to build an environment that is not quite so harsh and bleak, (which) is the common picture that the PLA has. So when you start looking at some of the things in PLA press that they're highlighting, they're starting to highlight better relations inside of military units. They're looking at providing messages about the types of environment, the types of recreational activities that are available, the quality of the facilities, those sorts of things, to incentivize people to want to come into the PLA.

Deanna Lee

Is there any sort of effort focused on providing the technical training that folks may need on the job or once they enter the military?

Mark Cozad

Yes, once they get in, there are technical training programs to help them. I think for the PLA right now, one of the major challenges is being able to get the people who would be able to actually complete those programs and take advantage of the education and training that's being provided to them. So when you start looking at some of the recruits, large numbers of recruits still come from relatively underpopulated areas. So their access to education, and in particular, STEM-related education, is limited. So it really is a mixed bag in terms of the types of recruits that you're getting.

And when you start looking at those recruits who are at the upper echelons of the Chinese education system who are coming out from better universities and better technical programs, they have many options available to them. So when you couple that with more of the traditional perspective in China that is always or that has not always looked at the PLA as an attractive option for young people or as a career option, then you can start to understand some of the problems, some of challenges that are facing the PLA as it tries to bring in these more technologically capable recruits.

Deanna Lee

Sure, and broadly, have these efforts, the bonuses, the other incentives, all the things you just discussed, have these been working? Are they effective?

Mark Cozad

It appears they've had limited success, particularly over the past two years. I think we're still very early on in that process. You do have some things that it's hard to attribute causality at this point, because you do have other developments in China that may be pushing recruits towards the PLA outside of the incentives, so high youth unemployment rates, particularly for people coming out of colleges and universities. So that could be pushing people into the PLA. We don't know if that'll be a sustainable route. In addition, just economic challenges right now that are underway in China.

So bottom line is, these past couple of years, they have had some success, and the PLA has talked about that success. The question remains, though, of whether or not that success is going to be sustainable over a long period of time, and specifically a long enough period of time for them to be able to meet the challenges and objectives that they have in. Some of the new operational concepts that they're trying to implement.

Deanna Lee

Okay, so we know that getting the right people into the PLA is a challenge, and that's sort of a direct result of China's aging population and its fertility decline. Are there any other ways that these demographic trends are directly affecting the PLA?

Mark Cozad

No, I would say that the biggest trends right now are on getting those technologically advanced individuals. And I think the big question is, is that absent whether they're going to be able to get the types of people that they need to implement this vision of the PLA, this more technologically capable PLA that's moving towards intelligentization, what are they going to potentially have to be able to adapt towards. And so I think that is a question that I have not seen them really try to tackle in the things that I have been reading from the PLA.

They still seem very focused on developing this higher-end version of the PLA that Xi has been asking for, has been directing. So I think, that that's a question at some point that may have to come up. I don't know when that will come up, and I don't know when they'll be prepared to have those kinds of discussions, but I think as we start getting into these periods where they do have some success with their recruiting efforts, that it delays those conversations, and it is very possible that they could be successful in the end. I still think that it's an open question and an enormous challenge for them as they are confronting some of these problems.

Deanna Lee

Can you speculate about any of the ways that China might have to adjust its modernization goals or, you know, kind of pull back from some of the things that it's been trying to do.

Mark Cozad

It's more of an issue, I think, of the way that they might have to operate in the future. So I think that the future with these advanced systems is pretty well set. They have those systems, they've been training with those systems. I think there are some open questions about how capable they are right now. I mean, proficiency has been a major focus for Xi Jinping. I think from a technological side, if they're not able to get the types of people that they're looking for on the scale for which they're looking, you could start seeing them really pushing in the direction of more and more use of unmanned systems, more and use of command automation systems and command automation systems that do more than what they've tended to do in the past. There's always been a limit to what they have tried to have these systems do. They've been more automation or automated decisionmaking support systems rather than systems that would go further in terms of making the decisions themselves. So it didn't diminish so much the commander's loop or the commander role in that process. But depending on how comfortable they're feeling, you could see some developments in those areas.

We know that there are putting a lot of emphasis into artificial intelligence and other advanced tools. So I think that they could put a lot more emphasis on that. The other thing that they can do is start thinking about how the PLA might look absent those numbers of people. And it was not that long ago where you had a PLA that was less technologically advanced and more focused on large numbers of people, large numbers of relatively limited capability systems—and they made that system work because they had to. They conformed it to the human capital that was available to them.

So, like with most of these efforts that countries have faced over history, especially if we look at the past 150 years with countries like Egypt, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Japan. It's a whole range of social, economic, educational types of developments that have to take place for these reforms to be able to hold. Otherwise, they end up either being incomplete reforms or these countries essentially have to go back and double down on the system that they started with, because they're unable to make the necessary reforms.

Deanna Lee

I'm glad you mentioned AI, I wanted to ask you about that. You know, as a lay person, I imagine sort of two broad scenarios, and maybe both of them are true. One in which AI helps meet some of the PLA's need for technically skilled humans, but also AI technologies themselves require technical skill to implement and use. How do you see that playing out?

Mark Cozad

Most of the discussions that I have seen from the PLA have looked at AI as being an additive part to the process, not taking the process over. So as you mentioned, it's there to help analyze data, sort data, make sense of large data sets, and essentially help commanders make better decisions. And I think that's still where they're focused. The PLA also has this added complexity when we start thinking about other systems where AI becomes a bigger part of the process and we start moving on towards autonomy, and that is the political reliability of the system itself. On paper, it might sound good to some that you would have a tool that would be able to remove the human from the process. But if that tool becomes unmanageable or does not respond in the ways that the Chinese Communist Party would want, it does raise some serious complexities, some serious questions, about what that will do in terms of the PLA meeting objectives that are set by the Chinese Communist Party. I think that's a complexity that sometimes doesn't get appreciated, but it's also very different from the system that we're involved in, you know, our own system. And looking at the types of problems that we're trying to address with AI. I think that added problem really provides a level of complexity and detail that we are just not used to seeing.

Deanna Lee

That will be an enduring question with AI, no doubt. Let's take a step back and talk about what this might mean for the United States. I'm sure a lot of our listeners are thinking about this in the context of the U.S.-China relationship. So what does this mean as Washington plans for a potential future conflict with China? How is it considering these issues?

Mark Cozad

I think the most important issue that policymakers and commanders need to be aware of is that the PLA that might enter into a conflict on day one is very unlikely to be the PLA that they will be dealing with on day five, 10, 15 or beyond that. I'm not going to make predictions on the extent to which the PLA is going to be able to adapt, but the types of people that come into the PLA are going to have a major impact on its ability to adapt in future combat operations. And I think that's really one of the untested assumptions that we have about the PLA is the extent to which they will or will not be able to adapt in a future combat environment. They do not have a great deal of experience. They've been learning secondhand from the United States. In recent years from the Russians; I'm not sure if that model is still one that they are as enamored with as they were in the past. But the bottom line is that without that type of experience of having to adapt to these different environments, it raises questions about how successful they will be in making that happen.

I do think that, regardless, one of the things that the Chinese Communist Party is really going to push—and it will remain a primary goal for them—is to ensure that the PLA is politically reliable and will fight when the PLA asks it to fight and will do what the PLA asks it to do in any of these different conditions. So I think that's really job one as we start thinking about some of these personnel issues. It's not just getting in the right people technically it's also making sure that the PLA does what it's asked.

Deanna Lee

And would you say the PLA is there yet in terms of its willingness to comply with whatever the CCP asks?

Mark Cozad

I think that's an open question, and I think it's an open question particularly for Xi Jinping. When we look at the corruption trials that have gone on, we're now starting to see trials and prosecutions of people that he's put into place—so some of his more trusted inner circle of PLA officers. And again, this gets right to the heart of these issues of political reliability. This is not a new issue for Xi. When he first came in, he was very focused on this issue of party control and PLA reliability. So I think that's still an open question of where they are, of whether or not they're where he wants them to be. I, personally, from what I see, do not think so, which is one of the reasons I think he is pushing so hard on these institutional reforms at this point.

Deanna Lee

What's the connection, if any, between the demographic trends we talked about earlier and the political reliability of the PLA? Is there a link to be made there with younger folks or more technically savvy folks that would one way or another affect it?

Mark Cozad

I think you start getting into questions about who party members are, and so as you start looking at their ability to get the kinds of people that they would want into the military, it raises questions about what party composition looks like, whether or not some of these people from the lower strata of society are going to be as motivated, perhaps more motivated, depending on the situation, to be members of the party. So. I think that that could have an impact. I haven't picked up a lot of discussion in the work that I've read from the PLA and the discussions that I read within the PLA on that particular issue. But I would imagine that that would be where that sort of discussion and the future is going to be centered.

Deanna Lee

Can you talk about how, if at all, the CCP's efforts to kind of optimize the PLA are directly affecting US military decisionmaking?

Mark Cozad

I don't know if there's anything that's really a direct impact in terms of the things they're doing today serving as a direct counter to what we're doing, but I think there's some implications from it. So if the PLA is able to tackle these institutional problems, they may gain confidence. And a PLA that is more confident and more willing to assert itself could become a much bigger problem for the United States. I think one of the things right now that holds them back in some cases—and in large part holds Xi back in some cases—is just this question mark in his head about how capable and how reliable the PLA is. So I think as they start looking at these institutional reforms, start looking at the progress they have or haven't made, that's really an open question.

To this point, I don't think that they feel confident in the gains that they've made. The conversations that they have now are very similar to conversations they've had over the past 20 plus years about the progress they've made, but I think that's a big one. Secondary to that, it's not just that level of confidence, it is how they operate. The PLA has tried to implement a number of concepts of operation over the past several years that have been much more closely modeled on Western concepts, trying to get away from these large mass movements and mass employment schemes that they have relied on over time. But they've had very limited success with those. They've done experimentation in small settings, but their ability to bring those out and implement those concepts across the force have, according to some PLA writers, met with limited success because you have a leadership that is incapable of doing that—incapable or unwilling to do that.

So I think as we start looking down the road, one of the other areas besides that area of confidence, and this one's more concrete, is their ability to actually develop that operational proficiency. And that will have a much bigger impact on the United States because it will prepare them, I think, much more readily, to be able to counter the types of concepts of operations that we're looking into, that we are adapting for use against them.

Deanna Lee

So you could see that confidence boost and those operational assurances as maybe some things that would impact, let's say, a decision to invade or institute a blockade of Taiwan, for example?

Mark Cozad

I'm very skeptical of that because I think that China and Xi Jinping in particular recognizes that their long-term health is focused on their role in the international economy and the global economy. And I think any decision to intervene in Taiwan, whether it's blockade, invasion, what have you, is going to be a politically driven decision. I don't think it will be based on whether or not he feels he has the capabilities from a military perspective of just being able to do it. I think the costs are extremely high and it would have to be a situation where he saw that is the best political alternative available to him.

Deanna Lee

What's the single most important takeaway from this report that you think U.S. defense planners should keep in mind?

Mark Cozad

I think the single biggest takeaway from this report is that the PLA continues to try to modernize. It's dealing with multiple different problems, whether that's technological assimilation or whether that is institutional reform. And the type of people that it brings into the PLA over the next several years is to have a major impact on how successful it is in meeting those challenges.

I think when we start looking at those challenges, the broader issue that they raise is whether or not the people who are coming into the PLA are going to be able to contribute to a system that is going to require some level of adaptability if they ever do get into a conflict. How quickly will they be able to adapt? How effectively will they able to adapt? And will they be able develop these new solutions in a period of time that prevents them from defeat or some sort of other internal problem that they may face?

Deanna Lee

Makes sense. Okay, well, I think that's all the time we have for today. Mark, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate your time.

Mark Cozad

Thank you, it was my pleasure.

Deanna Lee

To learn more about the report we discussed today, visit rand.org/policyminded. Today's episode was produced and recorded by me, Deanna Lee. It was edited by Emily Ashenfelter. Pete Wilmoth is RAND's director of Digital Outreach. Thanks for listening to Policy Minded. We'll see you next time.

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