Chinese Military Power — July 2026

The most consequential single signal of the period was the 6 July launch by a PLAN SSBN of a submarine-launched ballistic missile on a long-range trajectory into international waters of the Pacific. Chinese authorities described the launch as routine annual training involving a dummy warhead and stated that it was not directed against any particular country or target. External analysis assesses that the missile travelled more than 7,200 km, with its impact area near the central Pacific, and that the event represented China's first publicly known SLBM test into international open waters. The launch coincided with the opening of the China-Russia Joint Sea-2026 exercise and occurred while the US-led RIMPAC 2026 exercise was under way. Although this concurrence does not establish deliberate scheduling, IPSC assesses that it amplified the launch's strategic signalling effect. The event also occurred against the backdrop of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' July 2026 Nuclear Notebook, which estimates that China possesses approximately 620 nuclear warheads, with additional warheads in production; continues development of three major solid-fuel ICBM silo fields as part of a broader expansion to approximately 350 new missile silos; and is refitting Type 094 SSBNs with longer-range JL-3 SLBMs. Taken together, these developments point to continuing quantitative and qualitative expansion across the land-, sea- and air-based components of China's increasingly viable nuclear triad.

At the conventional power-projection layer, China's carrier and amphibious programmes produced several high-confidence indicators of capability maturation. Imagery published on 9 July showed a J-15T preparing to launch from CNS Fujian under full afterburner while carrying four YJ-83K anti-ship missiles — apparently the first publicly confirmed instance of a J-15-series aircraft operating from a carrier with that weapons configuration. J-15s operating from the ski-jump carriers Liaoning and Shandong have previously been observed with lighter anti-ship missile loads, underscoring the heavier launch configurations enabled by catapult operations. Separately, CCTV aired computer-generated footage on 29 July depicting the Type 076 amphibious assault ship PLANS Sichuan launching a GJ-21 stealth attack UCAV using its electromagnetic catapult, with additional GJ-21s shown on deck. Military commentator Wei Dongxu stated that completion of the vessel's flight-deck markings indicated that it had entered its final testing phase, with ship-aircraft integration training to follow. The imagery therefore provides evidence of the intended Type 076 aviation concept rather than a demonstrated operational GJ-21 launch capability. The China-Russia Joint Sea-2026 exercise, which concluded on 13 July and was followed by a combined naval patrol through the Miyako, Etorofu and Soya straits and into the western Pacific, Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan, further demonstrated the growing geographic reach and complexity of combined PLAN operations.

The operational-posture domain showed Beijing applying pressure concurrently across several geographically separated theatres. In the South China Sea, Chinese Coast Guard vessels used water cannon against Philippine government vessels around Scarborough Shoal on 23 and 24 July, with one Chinese vessel approaching to within approximately seven metres of a Philippine fisheries vessel on 24 July. At Second Thomas Shoal on 20 July, Philippine authorities reported that Chinese Coast Guard personnel struck a Philippine Navy sailor with a wooden baton and damaged a Philippine rigid-hull inflatable boat during a confrontation; Beijing disputed Manila's account of responsibility for the collision. In the western Pacific near Okinotori, a PLAN Type 052D destroyer conducted live-fire exercises approximately 180 km southwest of the island, with Japan's Ministry of Defense stating that this was the first occasion on which Tokyo had publicly confirmed a Chinese warship conducting live-fire activity within Japan's claimed exclusive economic zone. Around Taiwan, 26 of 30 PLA aircraft detected on 3 July crossed the Taiwan Strait median line, representing the highest single-day count recorded in the IPSC July signal set, while Taiwan's National Security Bureau reported that more than 110 Chinese military and coast-guard vessels had been tracked along the First Island Chain as of 3 July.

These outward-facing capability developments coincided with continuing evidence of institutional strain inside the PLA. A July 2026 China Aerospace Studies Institute assessment concluded that more than 100 two- and three-star PLA officers may have been removed, expelled, investigated or disappeared from public view during Xi Jinping's third term, while emphasising persistent corruption and structural weaknesses in the defence procurement system and the particular disruption experienced by the PLA Rocket Force. At a Politburo collective study session on 30 July, reported by Chinese state media on 31 July, Xi simultaneously called for tighter anti-corruption oversight of major military projects and accelerated development of unmanned, networked and intelligent military systems. The juxtaposition supports an assessment that China's military modernisation is proceeding at considerable technological and operational pace while the leadership continues to confront weaknesses in procurement integrity, command reliability and institutional discipline.