The report listed numerous areas in which China’s military is on the march. China is deploying a new class of nuclear-powered submarines equipped with intercontinental ballistic missiles. It is pouring money into space warfare systems and cyberwarfare capabilities. It is developing a “carrier killer” anti-ship ballistic missile.

China has “the most active land-based ballistic and cruise missile program in the world,” the report said. Beijing “now possesses one of the largest” forces of surface-to-air missiles in the world, it added. And it has the “largest force of principal combatants, submarines, and amphibious warfare ships in Asia.”…

China is also changing the way it thinks about its military, the report said. In the past, its military focused on guarding China’s sovereignty, which implied that China’s fighting men would not stray far from the country’s borders. Now that thinking has evolved to a paradigm designed to protect China’s interests, including economic interests, which span the globe.