The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

China’s ability to sustain military power at a distance
remains limited, but its armed forces continue to develop
and field disruptive military technologies, including
those for anti-access/area-denial, as well as for nuclear,
space, and cyber warfare, that are changing regional
military balances and that have implications beyond the
Asia-Pacific region. 61
There is no question that those who drafted this report
have reason to make such a judgment. But, from the
PLA’s point of view, they overstate its capabilities and
demonstrate little recognition of the security environment
perceived by Beijing. From the PLA’s vantage
point, the U.S. armed forces are not only vastly superior
in all realms of military operations from space
to ground warfare, but the technological distance between
them and the PLA is increasing. Moreover, the
U.S. build-up of its forces in the West Pacific has a hostile
purpose, with one Chinese report noting that the
United States now deploys more than half of its nuclear-powered
aircraft carriers and submarines, Aegis
destroyers, and strategic bombers in the Asia-Pacific
region. 62 Such hostile intent, the PLA insists, can be
seen in the constant aerial and ship-based surveillance
conducted by the United States on China’s maritime
perimeter with particular focus on military facilities.
China demonstrates its opposition to these reconnaissance
missions conducted within its 200 mile EEZ by
harassing them, often aggressively. In part this harassment
reflects the PLA’s frustration that when the issue
is raised at meetings of the Sino-American Military
Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA) the United
States insists the missions are legal as the United
States is exercising its freedom of navigation. 63 Most
recently, Lieutenant General Ma Xiaotian, a Deputy
Chief of the PLA General Staff, raised the issue at an
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