China’s Strategy to Become a Global Military Power

Strategic Council Online - Opinion: With its large arsenal of hypersonic missiles, advanced cyber capabilities, extensive satellite network, and survivable nuclear triad, China has become a serious competitor to the United States. Nevertheless, in strategic documents, including the 2025 National Security Document, China describes itself as a development-oriented power committed to the international order, whose path to rise does not pass through war.

Farshad Adel – Executive Secretary of the Iran-China Strategic Studies Think Tank

China’s Missile, Cyber, and Space Leap
Today, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, following its modernization programs, has become one of the world’s most potent military forces and competes closely with or even surpasses the United States in many key areas. China possesses the world’s largest arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles, the most important of which are the DF-15, DF-16, and especially the hypersonic DF-17. The DF-17 missile, with a speed exceeding Mach 10 and high maneuverability, is practically impossible to intercept by any existing missile defense system and is designed as a tool to destroy American aircraft carriers and bases in the Indo-Pacific region in a potential conflict.
In cyber and electronic warfare, China’s Strategic Support Force operates one of the world’s most aggressive units, capable of hacking and paralyzing enemy command networks, weapons, and critical infrastructure using artificial intelligence tools. Simultaneously, the country’s electronic warfare systems, utilizing secure quantum communications and artificial intelligence, have become almost immune to jamming. China has the world’s second-largest satellite network and, with its Yaogan, Gaofen, and Beidou constellations, has acquired capabilities for real-time reconnaissance, early missile warning, and precise weapon guidance across intercontinental distances. Tested anti-satellite (ASAT) capability and weekly Long March rocket launches ensure the continuity of space superiority even under war conditions.

Domestic Defense Industries and the Evolution of Nuclear Deterrence
China’s fully indigenous defense industries (NORINCO, AVIC, CASC, CETC) produce all strategic weapons, from the stealth J-20 fighter and Type 003 aircraft carrier to intercontinental missiles and nuclear submarines. This self-sufficiency, coupled with short domestic supply lines, enables China to wage a prolonged war and creates a significant advantage over America’s dependence on the global supply chain—a chain in which China’s role is very prominent. This was recently revealed as a risk for the U.S. when China imposed restrictions on some rare mineral elements in response to Trump’s tariff war.
In the nuclear domain, China now possesses a credible and survivable triad comprising land-based DF-41 and MIRV-capable DF-5B missiles, JL-3 submarine-launched missiles with a range exceeding 10,000 kilometers, and H-6N bombers, along with the under-development stealth H-20 bomber. With the total number of Chinese nuclear warheads surpassing 500 and an annual production rate of over 100 new warheads, plus the equipping of hundreds of additional silos, a guaranteed second-strike capability has been established.
Overall, the combination of non-interceptable hypersonic missiles, aggressive cyber and electronic warfare, expanding space superiority, self-sufficient industries, and strong nuclear deterrence has transformed China from a regional power into a global military superpower that in many areas has either matched the United States or is on the verge of surpassing it.
In its strategic documents, as well as in its most important security document, “China’s National Security in the New Era,” published in May 2025, China still presents itself as a developing country that never seeks to challenge the international order and security. Instead, the government strives to be recognized as a power bound by international principles by supporting the authority of international institutions and the United Nations, and there is never any sign in its leaders’ positions of an attempt to become a superpower through a world war, as the United States did.
In fact, China, as a country with an ancient civilization and thousands of years of history in political and military thought, seeks to shape a unique path to acquiring power. This path is essentially a grand strategy based on patience, which, influenced by China’s ancient intellectual traditions, strives to make the best use of economic power as China’s strong point by maintaining international harmony and order and development-oriented initiatives, and to follow a path of growth with minimal tension by quietly integrating into the global economy.
This approach is prominently visible in China’s declared positions, strategic documents, and international initiatives. Some Chinese thinkers, to describe this approach, refer to the ancient discovery and use of gunpowder in China, which, unlike Western civilization, which created a weapon for colonization from gunpowder, never turned into such a weapon in China.
Based on this approach, the People’s Republic of China has declared as a sign of goodwill that it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons and will expand security in the world not through war and conflict but through the tools of development. This is clearly emphasized in China’s National Security in the New Era document, and the keyword “development” is among the most frequently repeated concepts in it.

Narrative Creation and America’s Efforts to Portray China as a Threat
The West, and especially the United States, by highlighting China’s military power, is trying to lay the necessary groundwork for portraying China as a threat, because pursuing policies that lead to containing China requires producing extensive literature against China’s potential dangers and also creating a narrative of this country as a threat to the West.
This effort, which has been pursued more prominently recently, may in the future lay the groundwork for military conflict with China. However, China, with a clear understanding of this matter, seeks to achieve maximum flexibility through peaceful means to increase its power and geopolitical weight, raising the costs of this conflict for the West, especially the United States. Therefore, maintaining China’s presence and influence in the American market and in its economic partnership with the United States is the most important deterrent for China. America’s emphasis on pursuing the tariff war is essentially an attempt to neutralize this deterrence and pave the way for future actions against China.