China is learning to prepare for a drawn-out war after watching Russia struggle for years in Ukraine: think-tank

• China is showing signs that it's thinking about a drawn-out war after watching Russia, the IISS said.
• The think-tank noted 2023 regulations that spell out the military's ability to recall veterans and issue wartime mobilizations.

Beijing's military leaders appear to be preparing China for the possibility of a long-drawn war after observing Russia's protracted conflict in Ukraine, according to an international think-tank.

What has turned out to be a yearslong struggle for the Kremlin instead of a blitz of Kyiv is "likely to have driven the PLA Army leadership to reexamine operational plans for long-term industrial and logistic sustainment, as well as for casualty evacuation and treatment," the International Institute for Strategic Studies said in its annual report, Military Balance.

This means the People's Liberation Army will likely now focus more on its reservists, whose importance was previously overshadowed by other defense branches, said the report, which assesses military strength worldwide.

New military recruitment regulations detailed the ability of China's top defense leadership to issue a wartime mobilization, which the IISS said may have been a response to Russia's difficulty with refilling manpower gaps.

The regulations, passed in 2023, empower China's leaders to tweak the terms and conditions of military recruitment during war, and to recall veterans to service, the report said.

Heavy losses in Ukraine, coupled with reports of mistreatment of conscripts and contract soldiers on the battlefield, have been stumbling blocks for Russian military recruitment. Russia mobilized some 300,000 reservists in September 2022, a move so deeply unpopular that the Kremlin told the public it would not need a second call-up.

In China, the new recruitment measures indicate that Beijing is considering the likelihood of a similarly slow, plodding war in the Indo-Pacific region, Meia Nouwens, IISS senior fellow for Chinese security and defense policy, told Nikkei Asia.

Chinese leaders may be thinking that they might not achieve a "short, quick, swift victory after a surprise attack, but acknowledging that potential conflict might be protracted, and a war of attrition," Nouwens said, per Nikkei.

The IISS report said China has been gleaning other lessons from the war, though the think-tank said it's difficult to confirm what exactly Beijing is learning.

"Although public discussion of these lessons is tightly restricted and censored, some initial output of this work is evidenced by changes in emphasis in official PLA writing and training," the report said.

This includes a shift in the military space toward the discussion of drones and the concept of "low altitude dominance," likely induced by the extensive use of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles in the war in Ukraine, the think-tank said.

The war in Ukraine is expected to enter its third year on February 24.