Elsa Kania Testimony

The Competitive Challenge of Military-Civil Fusion Testimony to the U.S.-China Economic Security Commission for Hearing on “China’s Pursuit of Defense Technologies” Elsa B. Kania* 13 April 2023 As the United States and its allies continue to reckon with China’s rise, military-civil fusion must be recognized as a consequential component of Beijing’s strategy to catch up with and ultimately surpass the United States. This agenda has particularly concentrated on new frontiers and emerging technologies, where American advantage is neither assured nor unassailable. The pursuit of military-civil fusion may be especially impactful in new domains, such as space, cyberspace, and the deep seas, and in strategic technologies, including robotics, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. Looking forward, while military-civil fusion is unlikely to provide the truly seamless integration that the CCP aspires to achieve, this initiative is nonetheless a critical enabler of China’s rise as a global military power. The PLA today, while untested, has continued consistently exceeding expectations and outpacing previous predictions on the trajectory of its military modernization. Once, a not uncommon assumption in U.S. defense circles was that the PLA was unlikely to be creative or truly innovative, whether in its development of new generations of weapons systems or introduction of new concepts of operations. However, China’s efforts in military-civil fusion raises the risks of technological surprise, even as this agenda remains incomplete and aspirational, likely falling short of achieving the true fusion that the CCP seeks to create. While China’s military-civil fusion initiatives are sometimes surprisingly transparent, including because of the need to release publicly available information to implement a strategy of such complexity with multiple stakeholders, there are nonetheless a number of gaps in information, as well as a trend toward increased controls on information by the CCP, that can impede analysis. This agenda will continue to raise complex issues and competitive challenges for U.S. policy. The scope and scale of military-civil fusion is probably on track to exceed comparable American initiatives, based on the available indicators. There is no definitive answer at this point regarding the current magnitude of this agenda, nor obvious assessments of the prospects for success on various fronts, and direct comparisons between the U.S. and Chinese defense economies and innovation ecosystems are challenging at best. However, the CCP’s capacity to mobilize resources to pursue a systemic approach may be unique and has been enabled by centralized guidance that creates incentives and direction for a range of local initiatives. Ultimately, military-civil fusion is likely to remain at the core of the PLA’s drive to become a “world-class” military that aspires to achieve military-technological advantage on the future battlefield.1 This testimony seeks to highlight several salient trends and issues in the current trajectory of military- civil fusion for the Commission’s consideration. Imperatives for Military-Civil Fusion * Elsa Kania is an Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Center for a New American Security and a PhD candidate in Harvard University’s Department of Government. Her views are her own. This testimony builds upon previous research and ongoing analysis, based entirely on open sources. 1