Chinese Expansion – Getting More Expeditionary

Video Above: If China Invades Taiwan, how will the U.S. React? Roundtable’s Rob Nelson and Warrior Maven’s Kris Osborn discuss

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

The People’s Liberation Army and Marine Corps are taking aggressive measures to substantially enhance an ability to conduct expeditionary warfare and project power well beyond the Pacific theater, a DoD 2021 report on China’s military says.

China’s ambition is to quickly assert itself as a dominant global power not restricted to the Pacific but global in scale. The communist country’s move to migrate far beyond being a regional power has been known for many years now, yet it is something which is gaining a lot of momentum recently given Chinese force size growth and military modernization.
The 2021 DoD report, called Report on Military and Security Developments involving the People’s Republic of China, makes the point that PLA weapons development has in recent years been characterized by an effort to produce platforms “focused on mobility and ease of transport.” 

PCL-181

Examples cited in the report include ‘the PLC-171 assault-vehicle based 122mm howitzer, the PCL-181 wheeled howitzer, 3rd-generation Dongfeng Mengshi assault vehicles, and the Z-8L wide-body transport helicopter.”

 China has also built tactical trucks armed with mobile artillery, VT 5 light tanks and several expeditionary transport vehicles built for high altitude combat operations.
The PCL-181, for instance, weighs only twenty tons, whereas China’s legacy howitzer weighs nearly twice as much, making transportation and maneuverability much more challenging. 

A report in the Chinese government-backed Global Times newspaper quotes a military expert describing the new weapon’s advantages by stating “Its lightweight also gives the weapon an edge in high altitude areas when the lack of oxygen could impact the power of the engine, and it is also very agile and fast in quick-reaction deployments.”
I cited some relevant details with the PCL-181 in a report I wrote last year about the arrival of the PCL-181. From my report: