The People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF; 中国人民解放军火箭军) is the service branch of the Chinese armed forces responsible for the country's land-based conventional and nuclear ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and associated strategic deterrence missions. It was established on 31 December 2015 as part of Xi Jinping's sweeping military reforms, replacing the Second Artillery Corps (第二炮兵部队), which had operated since 1 July 1966 as a branch (兵种) subordinate to the General Staff Department rather than a full service. The elevation to a full service (军种) of the People's Liberation Army placed the PLARF on nominal equal footing with the Ground Force, Navy, and Air Force, reflecting the centrality of missile power in Chinese military doctrine. Its legal foundations rest on the 2015 reform decisions of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the revised National Defense Law, with operational authority running directly to the CMC chaired by Xi Jinping in his capacity as commander-in-chief.
Operationally, the PLARF is organized around numbered missile bases, historically designated Bases 51 through 56, each commanding multiple missile brigades equipped with specific weapon systems and assigned distinct geographic responsibilities. Base 61 (Huangshan, Anhui) faces the Taiwan Strait with short- and medium-range systems; Base 62 (Kunming, Yunnan) covers the southern theater; Base 63 (Huaihua, Hunan) historically operated intercontinental systems; Base 64 (Lanzhou, Gansu) handles assets in the northwest; Base 65 (Shenyang, Liaoning) addresses the northeast and the Korean Peninsula; and Base 66 (Luoyang, Henan) operates DF-5 silo-based ICBMs. A separate Base 67 functions as the central nuclear warhead storage and handling facility, while Base 68 manages engineering and construction. Launch sequences for nuclear systems require dual authorization from the CMC, with warheads historically de-mated from launchers and stored separately under Base 67 custody—a practice now eroding as more systems shift to combat-ready postures.
The PLARF inventory spans the full range envisioned by Chinese active defense doctrine: the DF-11 and DF-15 short-range ballistic missiles; the DF-16 and DF-17 (the latter carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle); the DF-21 medium-range family including the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile—the so-called "carrier killer"; the DF-26 intermediate-range "Guam killer" capable of dual conventional/nuclear payloads and anti-ship strikes; and the intercontinental DF-31, DF-31A, DF-31AG, DF-41 road-mobile systems, and the silo-based DF-5B/C with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs). The CJ-10 and CJ-100 ground-launched cruise missiles complete the conventional strike portfolio. The U.S. Department of Defense's 2023 China Military Power Report assessed that the PRC had surpassed 500 operational nuclear warheads and projected over 1,000 by 2030, with the PLARF as the principal custodian.
Recent developments have placed the PLARF under unusual public scrutiny. In the summer of 2023, the commander General Li Yuchao and political commissar Xu Zhongbo were abruptly removed, followed by the disappearance of Defense Minister Li Shangfu (a former Equipment Development Department head with PLARF ties). General Wang Houbin, formerly deputy commander of the PLA Navy, was appointed commander on 31 July 2023, with General Xu Xisheng installed as political commissar—an unprecedented insertion of outside-service leadership widely interpreted as a response to corruption in procurement, particularly of missile fuel and silo construction contracts. Concurrently, commercial satellite imagery from 2021 onward revealed three new ICBM silo fields under construction near Yumen (Gansu), Hami (Xinjiang), and Hanggin Banner (Inner Mongolia), totaling roughly 300 silos and representing the largest peacetime nuclear buildup by any state since the Cold War.
The PLARF is distinct from the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF), which was simultaneously created in December 2015 to consolidate space, cyber, and electronic warfare capabilities, and from the Joint Logistics Support Force. Unlike Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN), which control only nuclear-armed land-based missiles, the PLARF holds both conventional and nuclear systems under a single service—a structural choice that complicates escalation signaling because adversaries cannot determine whether an inbound DF-26 carries a conventional or nuclear payload, a problem known in the deterrence literature as "entanglement." It is also distinct from the PLA Navy's submarine-launched ballistic missile force (JL-2 and JL-3 aboard Type 094 SSBNs) and any future PLA Air Force air-launched ballistic missile capability, though all three legs are coordinated through the CMC Joint Staff Department.
Controversies surrounding the PLARF extend beyond the 2023 purges. Western analysts dispute whether China is shifting from its declared No First Use (NFU) policy, in place since October 1964, given the move toward launch-on-warning postures, MIRVed silo deployment, and dual-capable systems that blur nuclear-conventional firebreaks. The 2024 disclosure that Beijing had suspended bilateral nuclear arms-control consultations with Washington—initiated in November 2023 following the Xi–Biden Woodside summit—in protest of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan further constrained transparency. Open-source investigations by the Federation of American Scientists, the James Martin Center, and CSIS continue to drive much of what is publicly known about PLARF order of battle.
For the working practitioner, the PLARF is the operational instrument behind virtually every coercive military signal Beijing sends across the Taiwan Strait, the First and Second Island Chains, and the Sino-Indian border. Desk officers tracking cross-Strait crises—including the August 2022 exercises following Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Taipei visit, when PLARF brigades fired missiles over Taiwan into Japan's exclusive economic zone—must understand which base launched which system to read escalation intent. Arms-control negotiators face an opaque, expanding arsenal outside any treaty framework; alliance managers in Tokyo, Seoul, Canberra, and Manila calibrate posture against PLARF range rings; and journalists covering PLA affairs encounter in the Rocket Force the clearest window into Xi-era civil-military discipline and the limits of Party control over technical services.
Example
In August 2022, the PLA Rocket Force launched eleven DF-series ballistic missiles around Taiwan following Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei, with five impacting Japan's exclusive economic zone.