Breathe easier, Taiwan: China’s corrupt Rocket Forces are fuelling missiles with water

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army is counting on its rocket force, the PLARF, to deliver the first and most powerful blows against Taiwanese and allied troops in the event of an invasion of Taiwan.

So it’s a big problem, potentially an historic one, that the PLARF reportedly is riddled with corruption. That corruption could weigh on the rocket force’s ability to do its wartime job. And if the PLARF can’t fire its 2,800 non-nuclear missiles, quickly and accurately, Taiwanese and allied forces might be at full strength as the rest of the PLA forces commence their campaign.

All that is to say, advocates of a free and democratic Taiwan should hope the PLARF’s corruption problem is as bad as recent reports indicate.

Corruption has long plagued the PLA. In past decades, powerful Chinese commanders ran their regiments and divisions as veritable fiefdoms: putting them to work in military-controlled businesses that lined commanders’ pockets but contributed nothing to war-readiness.

Beijing has cracked down on corruption in recent years. The crackdown has intensified under Chinese leader Xi Jinping. But these efforts haven’t eliminated corruption, if new reporting from Bloomberg and other publications is any indication.

In an apparent purge back in August, the Party replaced two PLARF generals as well as the defense minister. The purge hinted at a greater crisis. And now, Bloomberg has dug up the alleged details. US intelligence sources told Bloomberg that PLARF leaders had filled up some missiles with water instead of rocket fuel – and apparently pocketed the savings.

At the same time, some of the PLARF’s underground missile silos, which protect its nuclear-tipped rockets, reportedly have defects that could prevent them from opening properly.

If true, these are serious issues. And they might hint that the Party still hasn’t rooted out endemic corruption in a critical fighting force. Besides overseeing China’s nuclear deterrent, the PLARF is China’s surprise-attack force. In the early hours of a war over Taiwan, the PLARF would lob hundreds of ballistic and cruise missiles at Taiwanese headquarters, air bases, supply depots and air-defense sites. Perhaps most importantly the PLARF would be trying to knock out Taiwan’s large armory of anti-shipping missiles.

The plan: to soften up Taiwanese defenses before the Chinese invasion force set out across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.

Chinese military vehicles carrying DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles travel past Tiananmen Gate during a military parade – Andy Wong/Pool via Reuters

And the PLARF has another main mission: preventing the United States and other countries from intervening in the invasion. Perhaps most alarmingly for the Americans, the PLARF has potentially hundreds of DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles that can range as far as 900 miles. The DF-21Ds could rain down on US Navy aircraft carrier strike groups – some of America’s most powerful forces for defending Taiwan. The carrier escorts might struggle to shoot them down. It’s not for no reason that some analysts call the DF-21D the “carrier-killer.”

But what good are the DF-21Ds if – for instance – the officers in charge of them have sold off important parts, or hired their troops out to make money when they should have been training?

There’s no firm evidence the carrier-killer batteries are as dysfunctional as other PLARF batteries reportedly are. Then again, the corruption the media has discovered in the rocket force in recent months is exactly the kind of rot that could weaken the whole institution.

Shen Ming Shih, a fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taiwan, said the PLA is still reluctant to go to war with Taiwan and the United States at the same time – and would need another 10 to 15 years of modernization before it could risk an invasion.

But the PLARF’s corruption scandal probably won’t derail China’s strategy of gradual escalation in the so-called “gray zone” between peace and war, Shen and fellow panelists said at an August event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC.

Beijing relentlessly harasses Taipei with ever-larger military exercises in the air space and waters surrounding Taiwan while also deploying its shadowy maritime militia – paramilitary sailors crewing hundreds of fishing boats – to intimidate and crowd out Taiwan’s allies from the disputed waters of the China Seas.

These methods do not depend on a perfectly-functional rocket force to work. They are gradual efforts to undermine Taiwan without attacking Taiwan – and they both weaken the island democracy over the long term while buying time for the Chinese Communist Party to set right the problems inside the PLARF.

All bets are off if the PLARF’s corruption is endemic to the entire PLA, however. If the army, navy, air force and marines are also hollow forces, then Beijing has a much bigger problem than its inability to conquer Taiwan right now.

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