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If past is prologue, the Pentagon will soon release its annual report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China. Commonly known as the China military power report, this publication is more than just another report from the Department of Defense. It plays a vital role in the public’s awareness of the world’s largest military build-up since World War II, which Beijing often shrouds in opacity.
In 1999, Congress required the department to provide a yearly report on China’s “current and future military strategy.” The first edition, released in 2000, spanned just 23 pages. Last year’s report was roughly 10 times longer, reflecting extensive analytic work inside the Pentagon. I saw some of that work up close as part of the Defense Department’s Indo-Pacific policy team from 2022 to January 2025. Over the past quarter-century, this annual publication has become regarded by Congress, the U.S. interagency, foreign governments, and outside experts as the most authoritative public evaluation of China’s military.
The competitive relationship between Washington and Beijing today would look quite different to the authors and audiences of the first the China military power report. The People’s Liberation Army of 2025 is far more capable and has an increasingly central role in Beijing’s aims for Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the broader Indo-Pacific region. That is why it is more critical than ever for Congress to reimagine the Pentagon’s annual report, ensure it reflects contemporary realities, and make its findings more consequential for policymakers.
There are three areas where the report could benefit from fresh thinking.
First, because the report has ballooned to the length of a book and requires considerable time and effort to produce, it often resembles a backward look. Last year’s edition, for example, covered 2023 and “early 2024,” but the department released it on Dec. 18, 2024.
Lawmakers benefit from the comprehensive scope of the report. At the same time, Congress and the public need more contemporary information about China’s military modernization. The Pentagon should maintain the report’s role as a cornerstone annual product. But with additional resources and congressional reform of the 1999 law that created the reporting requirement, the department could also use new tools powered by AI and open-source intelligence to provide a more regular, relevant drumbeat of public updates about China’s military activities. To make findings more accessible to the public, the Department of Defense has recently supplemented reports with fact sheets and on-record events at think tanks in Washington; it should have the resources and the requirement from Congress to do even more.
Second, the Pentagon should release the annual report at the same time as the administration’s defense budget request, which usually becomes public every spring. In recent years, the report and the budget have often been separated by more than six months. The China military power report does not make recommendations about what U.S. defense spending should look like, nor should it. However, the report’s findings unsurprisingly drive lawmakers and members of the public to wonder how Washington is investing in America’s own military deterrent.
Ultimately, the Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military will matter most if its analysis supports effective U.S. policy and budget choices that reflect the urgency of the military challenge from Beijing. While recent editions have shown that the People’s Liberation Army struggles with corruption, operational inflexibility, and other problems, the report has also consistently detailed a rapid and steady build-up by the Chinese military across nuclear, maritime, space, cyber, and other domains. Congress should have a chance to consider the defense budget and the report side-by-side, then make sure the former addresses the threats identified by the latter.
Third, any major changes to the annual report should also stimulate a broader rethinking across the U.S. government to improve how Washington communicates publicly about China’s ambitions, capabilities, and behavior. The Chinese military’s modernization effort is certainly consequential, but it is far from the only example of how Beijing seeks to reshape the international landscape and compete with the United States. Revitalizing the China military power report would mark a necessary but incomplete step.
To start, Congress could require other U.S. government agencies — ranging from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Transportation to the Commerce Department and the Treasury Department— to produce their own public analysis about Beijing’s coercive behavior alongside the administration’s annual budget proposal. Ideally, releasing these assessments simultaneously could drive a more expansive public debate about the broader challenge from China, in addition to reinforcing the need for a comprehensive U.S. strategy to respond.
The China military power report has received closer scrutiny amid bipartisan concerns about the growing capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army, as well as Beijing’s increased willingness to use its military as a tool for coercion. Recent editions have also shown why the 2022 National Defense Strategy was right to identify China as the U.S. military’s “top pacing challenge.” For these reasons, the Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military matters more than ever — but it should be adapted so that it can matter as much as possible.
Before the end of this year, the department will likely release the China military power report in essentially the same way that it has for the past 25 years. Next year should be different. To make sure the report is best suited to the realities of 2026, not 2000, Congress should overhaul the 1999 law that created it — and then the Pentagon should follow through.
Chris Estep is a non-resident fellow with the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the former senior advisor to the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, and the former press secretary of the House Armed Services Committee. The views expressed in this article are his alone.
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Image: Midjourney
