History UsefulNotes / ChineseWithChopperSupport

** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBl1py5yKFI Wolf Warrior]]'' (2015): A Chinese military unit conducting a training exercise near the Vietnamese border comes under attack by mysterious mercenaries. The movie is notable for largely being a VanityProject for actor Wu Jing.

** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkqGiPB2D8M Wolf Warrior 2]]'' (2017): [[SurprisinglyImprovedSequel The biggest Chinese box office success of 2017.]] In this movie, Wu Jing reprises his role as Leng Feng, who has left the Chinese military after a court martial and is now working off the African coast as a [[PrivateMilitaryContractors private security guard.]]

** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sOD1Qc0O4M&t=2s Operation Red Sea]]'' (2018): The biggest budget Chinese military movie created to date, and 2018's biggest success at the box office. A [[ThematicSeries thematic sequel]] to ''Operation Mekong'' and sharing the same director (Dante Lam) as that film, this movie is a [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory fictionalized account]] of the March 2015 Chinese civilian evacuation from Yemen, positing what may have happened if the evacuation convoys from [[{{Qurac}} Yewaire]] were to come under massive attack by terrorists.

** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vYvJler_As The Great War: Resist America, Aid Korea]]'' (2023): Produced to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the war's end and sharing the same main director as ''The Battle of Lake Changjin'' and also starring ''Creator/ZhangZiyi'', this film aims to cover the Chinese involvement in the Korean War all the way from the decision to enter the war to the signing of the final armistice agreement.

** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo3BT6v1jHo Sniper]]'' (2022): A movie by Creator/ZhangYimou showcasing the Korean War actions of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Taofang Zhang Taofang]], the greatest Chinese sniper in history.

Being the country with the largest population in the world, it's not surprising that China has more active-duty and reserve military personnel than any other nation, with nearly ''three million'' serving in the PLA. In addition, China also maintains around one and a half million para-military personnel in the form of the People's Armed Police, although the PAP is not part of the PLA, instead formerly answering to the State Council and now directly to the Central Military Commission as a gendarmerie equivalent separate from the civilian police, however in wartime the PAP aids the PLA in certain tasks. The PAP also contains the Chinese Coast Guard. As a proportion of its population, however, China's armed forces are not large; many countries, including the US, have a higher percentage of their populations in uniform. China does maintain a very large Militia force for aiding the PLA and PAP in wartime (including the PLA Navy and PAP Coast Guard by the Maritime Militia).

You will notice this oath places the Communist Party first, ahead of both the people and motherland. For this reason, it has raised eyebrows among more apolitical militaries.

All armed forces of the People's Republic of China are part of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), leading to its air and naval forces being referred to in English as the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), respectively (see below for PLAAF's Airborne Corps and the PLAN's Marine Corps -and other commands). What in most nations would be simply the Army is known as the People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF). Ballistic missiles, both nuclear and conventional, are operated by the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF), and in 2015 a fifth branch, the People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) was created. The exact nature of that branch's role has yet to be revealed, though it presumably includes logistical functions. The PLA is in the process of shifting its emphasis from massed ground forces to increasing the strength of its naval and air power, as China's focus now shifts from defending its land frontiers to projecting its interests in the rest of the world.

China has reasonably capable air forces, but only in its local region. Most of its technology is Soviet in origin, starting from the Mig-17 to the newest order of 48 Su-35s. The naval branch is medium sized and transitioning from a primarily coastal defence force to one with regional capability. More modern nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers (the first one is the ''Liaoning'', a retrofitted former Soviet aircraft carrier) are much-discussed potential additions. The PLA also has [=ASBMs=][[note]]anti-ship ballistic missiles; exactly how suitable a long-range ballistic missile is for attacking a moving target remains uncertain, but they'd certainly be harder to shoot down than ordinary anti-ship missiles[[/note]], missiles to destroy aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers are seen as a top priority for the PLAN, largely as a matter of national prestige; Chinese officials have expressed the belief that "all great powers have aircraft carriers", and thus consider it essential that China must have them.

Currently, China has been making huge pushes to modernize their armed forces to be able to compete with the United States, massively expanding Naval and Air Force assets. In addition to trying to build their own blue water navy, China has developed its own homegrown stealth jet. The PLAAF now have a prototype for a fifth-generation (according to Chinese sources) stealth fighter. It is nicknamed by Chinese bloggers and military forumgoers as "黑丝带" "Black Ribbon" and "[[Manga/KOn Mio]]". The first nickname is because it's black and a fourth generation fighter, and ribbon (丝带, Sīdài) sounds like fourth-gen (四代, Sìdaì) in Chinese, and "Mio" is born from a random comment on how much this plane's shape looks like the hairstyle of... Mio Akiyama from ''Manga/KOn''. It's now known as the J-20 (The J comes from the first letter of the pinyin romanisation of 歼击机 (jiānjījī), the Chinese for "fighter-plane", so it's the equivalent of F in American aircraft designations).

The PLA Navy has also been the subject of major investment in the 2010s and 2020s, having commissioned some of its first domestic aircraft carriers. The Navy is split into the Surface Force, the Submarine Force, the Coastal Defense Force, Naval Aviation and the Marine Corps. Surface handles warships, Submarine Force is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, Coastal Defense and Naval Aviation is in the same boat as the submarines for their job description, if not literally. The Marines were reformed to be a long distance expeditionary force with integral amphibious armor and artillery assets and integral air support assets for their helicopters, a strategic force just like the reformed Airborne Corps. A note to be made is that the PLA Ground Force maintains specific Amphibious Brigades with heavier assets than the expeditionary marines. They are theorized to be explicitly designed to take over Taiwan by exploiting initial landings made by the Marines, though the Marines are as aforementioned designed to be an expeditionary unit. It is likely that the Ground Force Amphibious units indeed were specifically designed to take Taiwan with their heavier assets. The PAP Coast Guard serve similar auxiliary roles to the PAP land and are designed to be placed under Navy control at wartime, with the Maritime Militia also acting as a reserve. The Coast Guard also has the role of coordinating Maritime Militia activities in the disputed South China Sea and has ships specifically designed to be unusually big for Coast Guard cutters to literally engage in bullying of smaller vessels in the dispute zone.

Each branch has its own Special Forces units. The Ground Force has a special warfare brigade for each army group, they are designed to act like the US Rangers and are a pure operations and combat force with no apparent Civil Affairs and Psychological capability like the US Special Operations Command. Any top tier units with such capability if they exist are unknown to the public as of 2022. The Air Force and the Navy have similar special warfare units for the Airborne Corps and the Marine Corps respectively. The Marines have integrated Recon units for their line units and Sea Dragon Commando unit for spec ops. The Airborne Corps has the Thundergod Commando Force, and may have integral recon assets like the Marines as well. The Rocket Force has the Blade Commandos who are designed to protect PLARF facilities and to provide special recon for the PLARF. The Strategic Support Force has the Counter Terrorism Assault Unit to protect facilities of the PLASSF. The PAP has the Special Police Units, who serve essentially as paramilitary SWAT teams. They are organized province to province and respond to requests by local sections of the civilian People's Police (as well as its more specialized divisions like the Judicial and Prison services and sister organizations like the Railway or Border Police -the latter of which is under the Immigrations and Customs Enforcemetn-), but they are also designed to directly respond to the Central Military Commission to attend national matters as well. Jurisdictionally they report to the local Provincial Security Bureau (or Municipal for province-tiered cities like Beijing).

The standard rifle is the QBZ-95-1, QBZ-95 (bullpups) and QBZ-03 (an improved Type 81 design) rifle, all of which fire a 5.8x42mm round that is slightly more powerful and longer-ranged than either the NATO 5.56x45mm or Russian 5.45x39mm rounds. Older rifles such as the Type 81 or Type 56 (AK-47) are used for training purposes or in secondary forces. The PLA is also testing an OICW weapon system based on the QBZ-03 and features of the French FELIN system. Recently, the QBZ-95 has started to be phased out in favor of the QBZ-95-1, starting with the Hong Kong garrison. Improvements include a slant/forward ejection system, a heavier barrel for improved accuracy and a more ergonomic safety selector switch.

The traditional PLA strategy in case of a major war was centered around the idea of "people's war"--a plan which called for luring the enemy deep, using guerrilla warfare to slow him down, and defeat him once he was overextended. After Mao's death; the need to prepare the armed forces to defend against a Soviet conventional attack; and the PLA's dismal performance in the Sino-Vietnamnese War, the 1980s PLA adopted the "people's war under modern conditions" strategy. This strategy consisted of a strong strategic defense phrase against a surprise attack, combined with guerrilla operations against mechanized forces' logistics lines; a strategic counterattack phase with armored forces against a stalled enemy; and finally a strategic offensive to push the enemy back to the international border.

In concert with this strategic reform was a reorganization of PLA infantry-heavy field armies into combined arms group armies, and the purchase of Western arms. These arms included tank fire control systems and 105mm tank guns, American and British counterbattery radars, helicopters like the UH-60 Blackhawk, modern avionics fitted on the J-7 ([=MiG-21=] clone) and J-8 fighters, 45/52-caliber 155mm howitzers, and antitank missiles. Understandably, Western military aid ceased after the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

PLA strategy after the 1991 Gulf War has moved away from these traditional concepts in favor of a modern doctrine suitable for fighting post-industrial wars.

There is an extremely extensive and active subculture of Chinese netizens - the ''junmi'' - who obsessively document and follow the Chinese military - at least to the extent the CPC allows. The tendency towards nicknaming Chinese equipment (due to Article 432 of the Chinese Criminal Code punishing disclosure of military secrets) now extends to foreign equipment and armies too - the UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks are nicknamed the "[[Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice World PD]]" or the "[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals Global Liberation Army]]", whilst the ubiquitous F-16 Fighting Falcon is called the "Pomegranate Sister", which is a homonym with the Chinese word for "sixteen". The Chinese authorities have a strained relationship with them. On one hand the ''junmi'' tend towards extreme nationalism and statism, on the other their analysis of Chinese military photos is sometimes too good for PLA comfort - not to mention an occasional source of information for the many foreign intelligence agencies with their eyes fixed on China's rising military.

* The People's Republic possesses and deploys nuclear weapons. Their number and capabilities are state secrets, and publicly-available estimates are pretty much guesswork. See UsefulNotes/TheDragonsTeeth for more details. China promised not to use nuclear weapons in preemptive attacks and only will deploy one after being attacked by one, so many Chinese are pissed about it.

* For most of TheNineties, the Chinese military was a popular choice of antagonist for the [[ThrillerLiterature techno-thriller military genre]]. The collapse of the Soviet Union made using the USSR as an enemy no longer viable, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre was still ''very'' fresh in pop-cultural memory, making the PLA an easy choice as a bad guy country with a powerful military that would not hesitate to kill civilians and commit war crimes. Plotlines frequently involved an invasion of Taiwan and other Asian Pacific nations. This died down significantly after the 21st century started when [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror 9/11 shifted the USA's national security focus to the Middle East]], as well as the [[ChinaTakesOverTheWorld massive rising power of Chinese economic and political influence]] making depicting them as all-out bad guys a much dicier proposal in the 2000s (although their heavy-handed actions in Hong Kong in the 2010s may bring this back). Some examples from this era:

** ''Lock Destination'' (2011): Perhaps the first example of a modern Chinese military movie, this movie focuses on two PLA Air Force pilots competing to become division commander of their unit with lots of gratuitous use of CG. Outside of China, this movie was called ''[[MarketBasedTitle Sky Fighters]]'', which has caused confusion with a 2005 French film of the same name.

When the People's Liberation Army's 'Pingjing' Campaign to crush the 'Beiping' (now 'Beijing')-Tianjin pocket of 500,000 Kuomintang troops was complete, it established itself as ''the'' dominant military power in China. After breaking the KMT's defensive line on the Yangzi, they went on to accomplish total victory over the Kuomintang in just a year - [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors bringing the Chinese Civil War to an end after 34 years of warfare and 8+ million dead]]. When taken together with the 10-20 million dead of the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar this left Communist China as the one of the most war-devastated states in the history of the entire world. It also left her with the second-largest military after [[UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets that of the Soviet Union]].

** ''Project Reality'''s SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/{{Squad}}'' will also feature the People's Liberation Army, initially teased as "Panasia", as part of its 4.0 Red Star Rising update.

** ''Project Reality'''s SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/{{Squad}}'' will feature the faction "PanAsia", an AnonymousRinger for the PLA.

* Chen Guoming and Karen Lo are ex-PLA Ground Force officers in ''{{Manga/Jormungand}}''. Chen is the CEO of Daxinghai, a [[PrivateMilitaryContractors security company]] focused on advancing Chinese national interests in Africa. Karen is his bodyguard.

* ''LightNovel/GirlyAirForce'' begins with the Zai leveling all of China in their initial attack on Earth. The story opens with a massive civilian evacuation off the coast of Shanghai as what remains of the PLA is providing escort duties with a few destroyers and extremely outdated Cold War-era fighters, all of which are no match for the Zai.

* In ''[[VideoGame/{{ARMA}} ARMA III]]'', the Chinese appear ''Apex'' expansion. They are the CSAT branch in the pacific island of Tanoa, and they share some equipment from their Iranian counterparts in Altis.

Each branch has its own Special Forces units. The Ground Force has a special warfare brigade for each army group, they are designed to act like the US Rangers and are a pure operations and combat force with no apparent Civil Affairs and Psychological capability like the US Special Operations Command. Any top tier units with such capability if they exist are unknown to the public as of 2022. The Air Force and the Navy have similar special warfare units for the Airborne Corps and the Marine Corps respectively. The Marines have integrated Recon units for their line units and Sea Dragon Commando unit for spec ops. The Airborne Corps has the Thundergod Commando Force, and may have integral recon assets like the Marines as well. The Rocket Force has the Blade Commandos who are designed to protect PLARF facilities and to provide special recon for the PLARF. The Strategic Support Force has the Counter Terrorism Assault Unit to protect facilities of the PLASSF.

All armed forces of the People's Republic of China are part of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), leading to its air and naval forces being referred to in English as the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), respectively. What in most nations would be simply the Army is known as the People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF). Ballistic missiles, both nuclear and conventional, are operated by the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF), and in 2015 a fifth branch, the People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) was created. The exact nature of that branch's role has yet to be revealed, though it presumably includes logistical functions. The PLA is in the process of shifting its emphasis from massed ground forces to increasing the strength of its naval and air power, as China's focus now shifts from defending its land frontiers to projecting its interests in the rest of the world.

Currently, China has been making huge pushes to modernize their armed forces to be able to compete with the United States. In addition to trying to build their own blue water navy, China has developed its own homegrown stealth jet. The PLAAF now have a prototype for a fifth-generation (according to Chinese sources) stealth fighter. It is nicknamed by Chinese bloggers and military forumgoers as "黑丝带" "Black Ribbon" and "[[Manga/KOn Mio]]". The first nickname is because it's black and a fourth generation fighter, and ribbon (丝带, Sīdài) sounds like fourth-gen (四代, Sìdaì) in Chinese, and "Mio" is born from a random comment on how much this plane's shape looks like the hairstyle of... Mio Akiyama from ''Manga/KOn''. It's now known as the J-20 (The J comes from the first letter of the pinyin romanisation of 歼击机 (jiānjījī), the Chinese for "fighter-plane", so it's the equivalent of F in American aircraft designations).

Being the country with the largest population in the world, it's not surprising that China has more active-duty and reserve military personnel than any other nation, with nearly ''three million'' serving in the PLA. In addition, China also maintains around one and a half million para-military personnel in the form of the People's Armed Police, although the PAP is not part of the PLA, instead answering to the State Council. As a proportion of its population, however, China's armed forces are not large; many countries, including the US, have a higher percentage of their populations in uniform.

* For most of TheNineties, the Chinese military was a popular choice of antagonist for the [[ThrillerLiterature techno-thriller military genre]]. The [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp collapse of the Soviet Union]] made using the USSR as an enemy no longer viable, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre was still ''very'' fresh in pop-cultural memory, making the PLA an easy choice as a bad guy country with a powerful military that would not hesitate to kill civilians and commit war crimes. Plotlines frequently involved an invasion of Taiwan and other Asian Pacific nations. This died down significantly after the 21st century started when [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror 9/11 shifted the USA's national security focus to the Middle East]], as well as the [[ChinaTakesOverTheWorld massive rising power of Chinese economic and political influence]] making depicting them as all-out bad guys a much dicier proposal in the 2000s (although their heavy-handed actions in Hong Kong in the 2010s may bring this back). Some examples from this era:

** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bVG7QrIfvI Sky Hunter]]'' (2017): a top-secret Chinese air force squadron known as "Sky Hunter" is trained to handle sensitive matters involving surgical strikes and hostage rescue. Things get complicated when terrorists in the nearby country of [[{{Qurac}} Mahbu]] attack an army base and take Chinese hostages. Starring Li Chen (who was also the film's director) and his then-superstar fianceé Fan Bingbing[[note]]their unexpected & sudden breakup in June 2019 was the source of much angst on the Chinese Internet, with much speculation that her arrest and disappearance for tax evasion in the summer of 2018 had to have played a major role in it[[/note]], this movie also served as a VanityProject for the couple, especially for Li as this was his directorial debut. Also features a score by Music/HansZimmer.

** And ''VideoGame/Battlefield2142'' featured the PAC, the Pan-Asian Coalition, an alliance between Chinese and Russian military, outfitted with cutting edge technology, including hovertanks, energy weapons on their battlewalkers and VTOL craft fully enclosed in armor with rear projection cockpits, all of that opposed to the more conventional EU forces.

** ''Project Reality'''s SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/{{Squad}}'' will feature the faction "Pan Asia", an AnonymousRinger for the PLA.
** And they're back again in ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 4}}'', duking it out with ''both'' America and Russia.

** ''Project Reality'''s SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/Squad'' will feature the faction "Pan Asia", an AnonymousRinger for the PLA.

* For most of TheNineties, the Chinese military was a popular choice of antagonist for the [[ThrillerLiterature techno-thriller military genre]]. The [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp collapse of the Soviet Union]] made using the USSR as an enemy no longer viable, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre was still ''very'' fresh in pop-cultural memory, making the PLA an easy choice as a bad guy country with a powerful military that would not hesitate to kill civilians and commit war crimes. Plotlines frequently involved an invasion of Taiwan and other Asian Pacific nations. This died down significantly after the 21st century started when [[TheWarOnTerror 9/11 shifted the USA's national security focus to the Middle East]], as well as the [[ChinaTakesOverTheWorld massive rising power of Chinese economic and political influence]] making depicting them as all-out bad guys a much dicier proposal in the 2000s (although their heavy-handed actions in Hong Kong in the 2010s may bring this back). Some examples from this era:

Currently, China has been making huge pushes to modernize their armed forces to be able to compete with the United States. In addition to trying to build their own blue water navy, China has developed its own homegrown stealth jet. The PLAAF now have a prototype for a fifth-generation (according to Chinese sources) stealth fighter. It is nicknamed by Chinese bloggers and military forumgoers as "黑丝带" "Black Ribbon" and "[[Manga/KOn Mio]]". The first nickname is because it's black and a fourth generation fighter, and ribbon (丝带, Sīdài) sounds like fourth-gen (四代, Sìdaì) in Chinese, and "Mio" is born from a random comment on how much this plane's shape looks like the hairstyle of... Mio Akiyama from ''Manga/KOn''. It's now known as the J-20 (J comes from the first letter of the Chinese name's Mandarin pinyin "Jiān", meaning "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Destroy]]").

Currently, China has been making huge pushes to modernize their armed forces to be able to compete with the United States. In addition to trying to build their own blue water navy, China has developed its own homegrown stealth jet. The PLAAF now have a prototype for a fifth-generation (according to Chinese sources) stealth fighter. It is nicknamed by Chinese bloggers and military forumgoers as "黑丝带" "Black Ribbon" and "[[Manga/KOn Mio]]". The first nickname is because it's black and a fourth generation fighter, and ribbon (丝带, Sīdài) sounds like fourth-gen (四代, Sìdaì) in Chinese, and "Mio" is born from a random comment on how much this plane's shape looks like the hairstyle of... Mio Akiyama from ''Manga/KOn''. It's now known as the J-20.

** And they're back again in ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 4}}''.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' backstory, TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt was caused by an U.S.-China war which escalated into a nuclear war after the invasion of Alaska, which can be seen in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' ExpansionPack ''Operation Anchorage''.

** ''Lock Destination'' (2011): Perhaps the first example of a modern Chinese military movie, this movie focuses on two PLA Air Force pilots competing to become division commander of their unit with lots of [[ConspicuousCG gratuitous use of CG]]. Outside of China, this movie was called ''[[MarketBasedTitle Sky Fighters]]'', which has caused confusion with a 2005 French film of the same name.

All armed forces of the People's Republic of China are part of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), leading to its air and naval forces being referred to in English as the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and People's Liberation Army Navy [[FunWithAcronyms (PLAN)]], respectively. What in most nations would be simply the Army is known as the People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF). Ballistic missiles, both nuclear and conventional, are operated by the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF), and in 2015 a fifth branch, the People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) was created. The exact nature of that branch's role has yet to be revealed, though it presumably includes logistical functions. The PLA is in the process of shifting its emphasis from massed ground forces to increasing the strength of its naval and air power, as China's focus now shifts from defending its land frontiers to projecting its interests in the rest of the world.