The PLA's Long March toward a World-Class Military
Progress, Ambitions, and Obstacles

The forthcoming volume The PLA’s Long March toward a World-Class Military: Progress, Ambitions, and Obstacles features papers from the 2024 People’s Liberation Army Conference convened by the National Bureau of Asian Research, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s China Strategic Focus Group, and the National Security Data and Policy Institute at the University of Virginia. The volume examines Xi Jinping’s requirement for the PLA to achieve “world-class” status by midcentury and the role it will play in supporting the Chinese Communist Party’s pursuit of national rejuvenation. The distinguished contributors to this volume assess the progress the PLA has made in key domains toward achieving world-class status, the party’s ambitions for the PLA once it achieves this goal, and the obstacles that are hindering the PLA’s progress.