40: MILITARY-CIVIL FUSION DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY OF CHINA

 (Relevant extracts From Annual Report to US Congress on military and security developments involving the people’s republic of china with comments)

• MCF. The PRC pursues its Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) Development Strategy to “fuse” its economic and social development strategies with its security strategies to build an integrated national strategic system and capabilities in support of China’s national rejuvenation Although China’s MCF strategy includes objectives to develop and acquire advanced dual-use technology for military purposes and deepen reform of the national defense science and technology industries, its broader purpose is to strengthen all of China’s instruments of national power by “fusing” aspects of its economic, military, and social governance.
• China’s MCF development strategy encompasses six interrelated efforts:

(1) Fusing China’s defense industrial base and its civilian technology and industrial base.

(2) Integrating and leveraging science and technology innovations across military and civilian sectors

(3) Cultivating talent and blending military and civilian expertise and knowledge

(4) Building military requirements into civilian infrastructure and leveraging civilian construction for military purposes

(5) Leveraging civilian service and logistics capabilities for military purposes.

(6) Expanding and deepening China’s national defense mobilization system to include all relevant aspects of its society and economy for use in competition and war.

Comments:  Military-Civil Fusion concept has lots of advantages. It is worth implementing it in a formalized way. We have Integration at various levels between ministries, organizations and institutions but at smaller scale and not in this well formalized way.

• Management and Implementation. The current MCF concept initially took root in the early 2000s with a decision to improve “military-civilian integration”. In 2007, it changed to “military-civilian fusion”. In 2015, the MCF Development Strategy was declared as a national-level The overall management and implementation of the MCF Development Strategy involves the most powerful organs in the party-state: the Politburo, the State Council (notably the National Development and Reform Commission), and the CMC. In 2017, Central Commission for Military Civilian Fusion Development (CCMCFD) was established which is chaired by General Secretary Xi Jinping.

Comments: The scheme could be modified to suit own needs, peculiarities and governing & eco system. Top down approach is required for formulation and implementation of the scheme.

• Integration and Coordination. MCF system entails linkages between dozens of organizations and government entities, including:
• • Ministry-level organizations from the State Council: Examples include the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Education, and key state entities such as the State Administration of Science and Technology in National Defense and
  • Lead military organs subordinate to the Central Military Commission: CMC Strategic Planning Office, Joint Political, Logistics, and Equipment Development Departments, as well as operational units and the regional military structure at the Military District and Sub-District levels; military universities and academies such as National Defense University, Academy of Military Science, National University of Defense Technology, and service institutions.
  • State-sponsored educational institutions, research centers, and key laboratories: prominent examples include the “Seven Sons of National Defense” (Harbin Institute of Technology, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical Institute, Beijing Institute of Technology, Harbin Engineering University, Beihang University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics), as well as certain PLA-affiliated laboratories of Tsinghua University, Beijing University, and Shanghai Jiaotong University, North University of China, and
  • Defense industry: the ten major defense SOEs still fill their traditional roles providing weapons and equipment to the military services. Many defense SOEs consist of dozens of subsidiaries, sub- contractors, and subordinate research
  • Other SOEs and quasi-private companies: high profile examples include PRC high-tech corporations and important SOEs like China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), China National Offshore Oil Company, and major construction companies that have roles in OBOR projects as well as helping the PRC build out occupied terrain features in the South China
  • Provincial governments: In practice, many MCF efforts involve partnerships between provincial or city government entities and military district departments and PLA

Comments: It is a whole of government approach. It is a good system where the government agencies, Academic institutions, Research centers and Industry (Military and Civil) all work together collectively.

Six Components of MCF

(1) The Advanced Defense Science, Technology, and Industrial System. This system focuses on fusing China’s defense industrial base and its civilian technology and industrial base. This includes expanding the private sector’s participation in China’s defense industrial base and supply chains as well as improving the efficiency, capacity, and flexibility of defense and civilian industrial and manufacturing processes. This broader participation seeks to transfer mature technologies both ways across military and civilian sectors, with the goal to produce outsized benefits for both sectors. This also aims to increase the competitiveness within the PRC’s defense industrial base in which one or two defense SOEs dominate an entire sector. This MCF system also seeks to advance China’s self- reliance in manufacturing key industrial technologies, equipment, and materials to reduce its dependence on imports, including those with dual-uses. The PRC’s MCF-influenced industrial and technology endeavors include Made in China 2025 that sets targets for China to achieve greater self- sufficiency in key industrial areas such as aerospace, communications, and transportation.

Comments. We need to integrate various agencies and develop an appropriate eco system so as the endeavor for self-reliance (Atmanirbharta) succeeds.

(2) The Military-Civil Coordinated Technology Innovation System. This MCF system seeks to maximize the full benefits and potential of the country’s S&T development. Consistent with the CCP leadership’s view that high technology and innovation are critical to strengthening China’s composite national power, this system develops and integrates advanced technologies across civilian and military entities, projects and initiatives—with benefits flowing in both directions. This includes using cutting- edge civilian technology for military applications or to more broadly advance military S&T as well as using military advancements to push civilian economic development. Although related to the Advanced Defense Science, Technology, and Industrial System, this system largely focuses on fusing innovations and advance in basic and applied research. Specific efforts in this MCF system include strengthening and promoting civilian and military R&D in advanced dual-use technologies and cross- pollinating military and civilian basic research. Additional efforts include promoting the sharing of scientific resources, expanding the institutions involved in defense research, and fostering greater collaboration across defense and civilian research communities. This system also seeks to foster “new- type” research institutions with mixed funding sources and lean management structures that are more dynamic, efficient, and effective than the PRC’s wholly state-owned research bodies. Examples of MCF-influenced dual-use S&T endeavors include China’s Innovation Driven Development Strategy and Artificial Intelligence National Project.

Comments.  We have made good progress in some of the modern dual use technologies. These have mainly been for civilian use and later been adopted for military use as an offshoot. We need to have a national level coordinating agency and system in place for research and development of these technologies for dual use from the beginning.

(3) The Fundamental Domain Resource Sharing System. This system includes building military requirements into the construction of civilian infrastructure from the ground up as well as leveraging China’s civilian construction and logistics capacities and capabilities for military purposes. This includes factoring military requirements and dual-use purposes into building civilian private and public transportation infrastructure such as airports, port facilities, railways, roads, and communications networks. This also extends to infrastructure projects in dual-use domains such as space and undersea as well as mobile communications networks and topographical and meteorological systems. Another element seeks to set common military and civilian standards to make infrastructure easier to use in emergencies and wartime. This aspect of MCF has arguably the greatest reach into the PRC’s local governance systems as military requirements inform infrastructure construction at the province, county, and township levels. The influence of this aspect of MCF is visible in the PRC’s major land reclamations and military construction activities in the South China Sea, which brought together numerous government entities, the PLA, law enforcement, construction companies, and commercial entities. It may also have important implications for the PRC’s overseas infrastructure projects and investments under OBOR as the PRC seeks to establish a more robust overseas logistics and basing infrastructure to allow the PLA to project and sustain military power.

Comments.  Some examples of dual use infrastructure are  joint civil-military airfields and some highway stretches as runways. Similarly other defense services also have a liaison with civilian and other agencies for dual use of some infrastructure and equipment. However, there is a division between civilian and military infrastructure and even equipment. National level integration will ensure optimization of resources and availability at the time of need.   

(4) The Military Personnel (Talent) Cultivation System. This MCF system seeks to blend and cultivate military and civilian S&T expertise through education programs, personnel exchanges, and knowledge sharing. The purpose of this effort is to improve the utilization of experts able to participate in S&T projects irrespective of whether they are military or civilian (or even foreign) experts and allow expertise to flow more freely across sectors. This aspect of MCF also seeks to reform China’s talent cultivation system, which encompasses hundreds of talent recruitment plans, in order to improve China’s human capital, build a highly skilled workforce, and recruit foreign experts to provide access to know-how, expertise, and foreign technology. It takes into account all levels of education from the Party’s nationwide “patriotic education” programs for children to the matriculation of post- doctorate researchers within China and at institutions abroad. Many of the PRC’s named “talents” programs are likely influenced by MCF planning, as are reforms in its military academies, national universities, and research institutes.

Comments. There is a need for freer cross utilization of talent and trained manpower in our case. This will benefit both civil and military equally.

(5) The Socialized Support and Sustainment System for the PLA. This system entails two major efforts that seeks to shift the PLA away from its inefficient self-contained logistics and sustainment systems and towards modern streamlined logistics and support services. First, it seeks to harness civilian public sector and private sector resources to improve the PLA’s basic services and support functions—ranging from food, housing, and healthcare services. The concept is to gain efficiencies in costs and personnel by outsourcing non-military services previously performed by the PLA while also improving the quality of life for military personnel. Second, it seeks to further the construction of a modern military logistics system that is able to support and sustain the PLA in joint operations and for overseas operations. This system seeks to fuse the PLA Joint Logistic Support Force’s (JLSF) efforts to integrate the military’s joint logistics functions with the PRC’s advanced civilian logistics, infrastructure, and delivery service companies and networks. These arrangements seek to provide the PLA with modern transportation and distribution, warehousing, information sharing, and other types of support in peacetime and wartime. This fusion also seeks to provide the PLA with a logistics system that is more efficient, higher capacity, higher quality, and global in reach.

Comments. We are progressing reasonable well in this domain and it will further improve with formation of DMA. Formalized system will improve the civil-military integration benefitting both.

(6) The National Defense Mobilization System. This MCF system binds the other systems as it seeks to mobilize China’s military, economic, and social resources to defend or advance China’s sovereignty, security and development interests. The Party views China’s growing strength as only useful to the extent that the party-state can mobilize it. China views mobilization as the ability to use precisely the instrument, capability, or resource needed, when needed, for the duration needed. Within the PLA, the reforms in 2015-16 elevated defense mobilization to a department called the National Defense Mobilization Department (NDMD), which reports directly to the Central Military Commission (CMC). The NDMD plays an important role in this system by organizing and overseeing the PLA’s reserve forces, militia, and provincial military districts and below. This system also seeks to integrate the state emergency management system into the national defense mobilization system in order to achieve a coordinated military-civilian response during a crisis. Consistent with the Party’s view of international competition, many MCF mobilization initiatives not only seek to reform how China mobilizes for war and responds to emergencies, but how the economy and society can be leveraged to support China’s strategic needs for international competition.

Comments. We have all the elements mentioned above in some form or the other. However, a formalized approach implemented and monitored top down would be of immense benefit.

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