PRC Conceptions of Comprehensive National Power: Part 1

Publication: China Brief Volume: 25 Issue: 16

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A July 2025 press conference on completing the 14th Five-Year Plan headlined “My Country’s Comprehensive National Power Makes Rapid Progress Promoting Chinese Modernization in the 14th Five-Year Plan.” (Source: CCTV)

Executive Summary:

  • Comprehensive national power (CNP) is a central framework through which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) measures its progress toward key strategic objectives. The ends the CCP is pursuing through building its CNP is a dominant position in a reshaped international order in which it has prevailed in an ideological competition with the West.
  • The effort to establish a theoretical framework to understand CNP began in the 1980s under Deng Xiaoping, Considerable attention and resources were devoted to developing CNP theory from 1990–2015, especially under leading scholars such as Huang Shuofeng and Wu Chunqiu. This work initially took place outside of government, at the National Defense University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, but today official measurements are likely conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics.
  • Influenced by cybernetics and systems-of-systems engineering, PRC CNP theory frames CNP as a complex system with a large number of measurable indices. To this day, the Party-state appears to make precise calculations of CNP, including ranking the CNP of different countries.

Over two days in late August 2025, the National Committee of the 14th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference held a meeting to discuss the 15th Five-Year Plan that is currently under development. Politburo standing committee member and state vice premier Ding Xuexiang (丁薛祥) delivered a report to an audience that included a number of top-level officials. [1] Praising the country’s development over the last four and a half years, he declared that the economic power, science and technology power, and comprehensive national power of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “have all leapt to a new stage” (跃上了新台阶) (People’s Daily, August 26).

“Comprehensive national power” (综合国力; CNP) [2] is a central framework through which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) measures its progress toward key strategic objectives. The framework also guides Beijing’s approach to, and understanding of, competition with the West. The Party has assessed since at least 1992—when the term was first enshrined in the Party Charter—that CNP competition defines global systems competition, and that competition with the United States will determine the future of the international order (Party Members Net, October 22, 2022). While some Western scholarship references CNP as an aspect of competition, or as part of Chinese-style modernization, very little has dealt with it as the primary subject of study. [3] This article is the first in a series of five that will analyze how the Party-state system has characterized the importance of CNP to both national rejuvenation and international competition, how the CCP has resourced national development strategies in pursuit of these objectives, and what the implications of this framing are for interpreting future CCP and PRC behavior. This first instalment provides an overview of what the Party means by CNP, the theoretical underpinnings that lie behind it, and a brief history of ongoing attempts by scholars and government agencies to calculate comparative CNP globally.

Beijing’s Central Framework for Rejuvenation and Global Competition

Chinese scholars have defined CNP as the resources possessed by a state to ensure both its survival and its development; as well as the capability of that state to use its resources to achieve strategic objectives (Hu Angang, China Study, 2010). Jiang Zemin outlined this in 1993 when unveiling new strategic military guidelines, noting that “if we can sustain rapid economic development for a decade or several decades in a secure and stable environment, our economic, military, and comprehensive national power will increase greatly. Our security will be better assured, our international standing will be higher and firmer, and our cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics will have greater vitality” (只要我国能够在相对安全稳定的环境中加速发展十年，几十年，我们的经济实力，国防实力，在综合国力就会大大增强，我国的安全就更有保证，我国的国际地位就会更有巩固和提高，有中国特色社会主义事业就会更加充满升级和活动) (Jiang Zemin, Selected Works of Jiang Zemin: Volume 1, 1993).

Since then, CNP competition has shaped the CCP’s approach to modernization strategies domestically and international competition globally. As Jiang explained in 1991, international competition is, in the final analysis, “a competition of comprehensive national power” (综合国力的竞争) (Selected Important Documents Since the 13th National Congress, May 23, 1991). [4] This assessment was repeated in a 1993 speech at an economic work symposium, where Jiang described competition among various countries as “a comprehensive national power competition based on economic, scientific, and technical strength” (以经济和科技实力为基础的综合国力的竞争) (Qiushi, July 31, 2019). In 1992, Jiang’s report to the 14th Party Congress argued that the essence of socialism was in developing productive forces, something that can be assessed in terms of the extent to which it strengthens the socialist state’s CNP (是否有利于增强社会主义国家的综合国力) (CCP News, October 12, 1992). In the intervening decades, CCP assessments have displayed a remarkable consistency. Nearly 30 years later, Xi Jinping explained that “winning advantage in the competition for comprehensive national power is the key to national rejuvenation” (在综合国力的竞争中赢得先机是民族复兴的关键) (People’s Daily, September 27, 2021).

The end state the CCP is pursuing through building its CNP is a dominant position in a reshaped international order in which it has prevailed in an ideological competition with the West. For decades, the CCP has rejected the current international order as biased against the developing world, designed to protect Western hegemony over the international system and, ultimately, an existential threat to Marxist-Leninist regimes like the CCP. This is visible in the Party’s long-held opposition to “hegemonism” (霸权) and “power politics” (强权)—rhetoric that took on new meaning at the end of the Cold War as a new, unipolar order began to emerge and the PRC’s capacity to challenge it grew. According to many PRC analysts at the time, this unipolar order would inevitably evolve into a multipolar one, despite efforts by the United States to preserve its hegemonic status, a perspective that has since become a central theme of academic and Party literature on CNP. In this context, calls from PRC leaders for “multilateralism” and for a democratized international system are designed to challenge U.S. hegemony by using the United Nations to constrain U.S. options globally. This was most clearly articulated by then-Senior Colonel at National Defense University (NDU) Liu Mingfu (刘明福), who explained in 2009 that “building democratic nations is the weapon with which America attacks China, and building a democratic world is the weapon with which China attacks America” (Liu Mingfu, The China Dream [中国梦], 2015). [5]

Systems Theory and the Foundations of Chinese CNP Research

The effort to establish a theoretical framework to understand CNP began in earnest in the 1980s, when Deng Xiaoping called for understanding the PRC’s national power through comprehensive study. Responding to Deng’s call, Huang Shuofeng (黄朔风), a scholar at NDU, published the first major study on the country’s CNP in 1984, titled “Studying of the Chinese National Defense Strategy Systems for the Year 2000” (2000年中国国防战略系统研究). Two years later, Wu Chunqiu (吴春秋), a scholar at the Academy of Military Sciences (AMS), published an article in National Defense University Journal (国防大学学报) titled “National Defense Strategy and Comprehensive National Power” (国防战略与综合国力). The writings of these two early proponents of CNP research were part of a growing body of literature that emerged as teams at NDU and elsewhere conducted research on CNP, grand strategy, military-civil fusion, and cybernetics. [6] This work was unified by a desire to determine “scientific measures” (科学的对策) to ensure the survival and development of the PRC to “continuously enhance [its] comprehensive national power” (不断增强我国的综合国力) (Huang Shuofeng, Comprehensive National Power Theory [综合国力论], 1992).

The theoretical outline of how scholars have framed CNP relies on a systems-of-systems engineering approach. Wu explained in 1998 that the value of studying CNP lies “in its comprehensiveness, which requires considering the factors of national strength as a large system” (Wu Chunqiu, Chinese Grand Strategy, 1998). This focus reflects a preoccupation with cybernetics within Chinese academia over the past four decades. PRC scholars view the overarching system as a “non-linear, dynamic, open, and complex system” (Huang Shuofeng, Rivalries Between Major Powers, 2006). According to Huang, “the non-linearity of the system means that inputs and outputs will be disproportionate, and small changes in the initial balance will cause huge changes in the results” (Huang Shuofeng, Rivalries Between Major Powers: A Comparison of World Power’s Comprehensive National Power [大国转量：世界主要国家综合国力国际比较], 2006). This makes CNP, in the words of one CASS researcher, “not a simple sum of multiple forces but system made up by a variety of forces … and whether the structure is balanced is also extremely important” (综合国力不是多种力量的简单加总，而是多种力量有机组合的一个系统 … 结构是否均衡也非常重要) (World Economics and Politics, August 23, 2006). As such, it is impossible to fully and accurately reflect a country’s CNP by emphasizing any one factor in isolation.

Balancing this system-of-systems is the role of the state. As a former director of the Research Office of the CCP Central Committee explains in the introduction to Huang’s 2006 book Rivalries Between Major Powers, studying CNP enables the government to allocate resources across the national systems to drive development. This focus on maintaining an even balance across the system and on the importance of government coordination of development aligns with CCP assessments of the causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union. For instance, in Huang’s view, the collapse was a failure to coordinate relations between essential elements in the development of Soviet CNP: military competition led to an economic crisis, while scientific and technological innovation stalled and political turmoil ensued. This approach holds lessons for how scholars, and perhaps also the CCP, consider the ramifications of the PRC’s slowing economic growth. On the one hand, slowing growth could have disproportionate impact on the country’s CNP, given the “nonlinearity” of the system. Conversely, Huang’s work suggests that it would be an error to over-weight the importance of slowing economic growth on the country’s overall CNP.

Different authors describe the particular subsystems that make up CNP in different ways. Despite not knowing with certainty precisely how the CCP measures CNP, consistency across a wide-body of sources offers valuable insights. Most include similar core elements. These elements also fit with a list of critical areas of focus for the Party that Jiang highlighted at the 14th Party Congress: economics, politics, science and technology, education, culture, military affairs, and foreign affairs (CCP News, October 12, 1992).

Huang explains that in designing a CNP system, the first requirement is to develop the goal that the function of the system is designed to achieve, and to identify the criteria used to judge progress towards that goal. He breaks down this system-of-systems into a four-tier hierarchy. (See Figure 1.) At the bottom is a base layer (基本层) of more than 30 variables. These all feed into seven critical elements of CNP in a “sub-­criteria” (子准则层) layer. Four of these seven elements—economic strength, science and technology strength, national defense strength, and resource strength—support the hard power branch of a “criterion layer” (准则层), while a further three, political strength, cultural and education strength, and foreign policy strength, support a soft power branch. These two sources of power then feed into a “target/goal layer” (目标层)—CNP. Once this basic framework had been created, researchers could then start to apply metrics for calculating CNP.

 

Figure 1: Illustrative Excerpt From Huang Shuofeng’s CNP Framework

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Source: Huang Shuofeng, Rivalries Between Major Powers, 2006, p.88)

Quantitative Methods Used to Calculate CNP

One of the most important aspects of Chinese approach to CNP is the understanding that it can be objectively measured and compared through mathematical equations and that resources can be adjusted to bolster it. The intent behind such calculations is to help CCP leaders understand the PRC’s position vis-à-vis other international actors and identify elements within domestic modernization efforts that may need support or adjustment. Even if the specifics of the mathematical formulas the Chinese system uses remain elusive, assessments in key leadership speeches and reports of “leaps” and “taking big steps” in CNP has remained a consistent theme over the past 30 years. [7] For instance, Xi’s declaration in 2017 that Socialism with Chinese Characteristics had entered a “new era” reflected assessments at the time that the PRC was making measurable progress in building its CNP.

Chinese scholars have worked for decades to formulate ways of calculating CNP. In Comprehensive National Power Theory, Huang explained the need to “use systems theory, synergy, and dynamic methods” (运用系统论，协调学和动力学的原理) to establish a set of equations designed to measure CNP. In his 2006 book, he wrote that he had adopted a method that combined qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, building on models developed by the engineer and cybernetics expert Qian Xuesen (钱学森) to create a model consisting of a main equation and 30 sub-equations, including more than 150 indices. Huang’s equation is just one of many that emerged in the literature between 1992 and 2014. A decisive model does not appear to have been made public, though NDU, CASS, CICIR, and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) all have published global CNP rankings based on mathematical formulations. Tables 1a and 1b depict weighted values and rankings from the work of PRC scholars on CNP.

Table 1a: Weighted Values for CNP Indices 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 1b: Country Rankings Based on Those CNP Indices

Country 1970 1980 1990
U.S. 83.6                Rank 1 78.4                Rank 1 79.1                Rank 1
Japan 39.6                Rank 9 48.8                Rank 4 52.9                Rank 3
Germany 45.6                Rank 3 50.0                Rank 3 50.3                Rank 4
France 37.6                Rank 6 44.9                Rank 5 43.8                Rank 5
China 27.5                Rank 10 30.2                Rank 10 32.3                Rank 9

(Source: Wang Tongfeng, Chen Sha, Shi Xiaoyu, eds., Comparative Study of the Comprehensive National Power of Major Countries in the World [世界主要国家综合国力比较研究], Institute of World Economics and Politics, China Academy of Social Sciences, Hunan, PRC: Hunan Publishing House, 1996, p. 169–71.)

Differences have persisted over how to calculate CNP. A 1996 book edited by CASS’s Institute of World Economics and Politics explained that, while there is no singular definition of what constitutes CNP, there are consistent themes across all studies of CNP. The publication of its annual “Yellow Book” (黄皮书) indicated that CASS was working on calculating and comparing CNP globally. The Yellow Book series continues to address CNP to this day. [8] Nevertheless, the editor-in-chief of CASS’s “Yellow Book” admitted in 2006 that disagreement led to them turning to an outside team for help with their calculations. (For a breakdown of different Chinese scholars’ CNP comparisons, see Table 2 below.)

In 2013, the NBS undertook a project called “Research on the Comprehensive National Power Evaluation of Major Countries in the world” (世界主要国家综合国力评价研究), using a computational model that listed CNP elements similar to those previously outlined by Huang. The deputy director of the bureau at the time emphasized the importance of correctly understanding a country’s “comprehensive national strength” (综合实力) and its status and role in the international community (NBS, November 17, 2014). He said that the PRC’s “status and influence in the international community are growing” (越来越高), and so the NBS should “objectively evaluate” its CNP. He directed his team to build the comprehensive national power calculation into a leading product of the statistical research department (NBS, November 17, 2014). Subsequent NBS annual reports suggest that they have assumed responsibility for calculating comparative CNP ever since. A Xinhua article reviewing annual government statistical yearbook for 2018 framed the work under the headline “comprehensive national strength achieves historic leap” (Xinhua, July 1, 2019). In January 2023, the NBS’s director explained that CNP had “reached a new level” (综合国力再上新台阶), citing per capita GDP growth in support of their claim to argue that the country’s “comprehensive national power, social productivity, international influence, and people’s living standards have further improved” (NBS, January 17, 2023).

Despite these differences in examination of how to calculate CNP, including how measures are weighted, a clear picture of CCP priorities in pursuit of CNP has emerged over time, centered on the seven core elements that were originally laid out by Huang Shuofeng and Jiang Zemin.

Table 2: Comparative CNP Rankings of Major Countries by Various Scholars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Source: Qi Haixia, “From Comprehensive National Power to Soft Power: A Study of the Chinese Scholar’s Perception of Power,” How China Sees the World Working Paper Series, No.7 (2017), Griffith Asia Institute, Queensland, Australia; Institute of international Relations, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, p. 4–5)

Conclusion

Considerable attention and resources were devoted to developing CNP theory from 1990–2015. As subsequent articles in this series discuss, this theoretical framework has been influential in shaping Party ideology and government policy, including informing significant shifts in the Xi era. As early as 1996, scholars were noting that the study of CNP had “entered a stage of extensive practical application” (Wang Songfen ,Comparative Study of the Comprehensive National Power of Major Countries in the World, 1996). Writing in 2015, Jinan University Professor Jia Haitao (贾海淘) explained that the concept and theory of CNP had become an important guiding ideology for socialist construction and national development in the new era, and that it had become the governing philosophy and theory of the Party and the country in the new era (Jia Haitao, Comprehensive National Power and Cultural Soft Power Systems Reseach, 2015). [9].

The relative decline in public discussions on how to calculate CNP after 2010 suggests that the system settled on a solution, but that solution was never made public. Continued reporting on the PRC’s expanding CNP by government agencies like the NBS and in statements by Xi Jinping indicate that work on CNP continues to this day.

The Party-state’s long-term and consistent framing of CNP has implications for interpreting future CCP behavior. CNP scholars such as Huang and Wu anticipated long ago that global competition in the 21st century would include “economic warfare, technological warfare, and military warfare” (Huang Shuofeng, Comprehensive National Power Theory, 1992). And in a 2002 work, Wu added that “victory without war does not mean that there is not any war at all. The wars one must fight are political war, economic war, and technological war … a war of comprehensive national power” (Wu Chunqiu, Dialectics and the Study of Grand Strategy, 2002).

This article reflects the sole views of the author. They do not reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense, or the Department of the Navy.

Notes

[1] The opening of the meeting was chaired by politburo standing committee member and CPPCC Chairman Wang Huning (王沪宁), and among 20 other listed senior officials were current and former politburo members Shi Taifeng (石泰峰) and Hu Chunhua (胡春华).

[2] This paper translates “综合国力” as “comprehensive national power.” Some official English translations use “comprehensive national strength,” though to avoid confusion this article translates “实力” as “strength.” (“实力” is used to discuss the elements that constitute CNP, such as economic strength (经济实力)). At times, inconsistent language is used to discuss CNP within the Chinese language discussion. Most Party documents use “综合国力.” Some scholars instead use the term “comprehensive national strength” (综合实力); though, in almost all cases, those who are writing about CNP as the main topic use “综合国力.” Conceptually, the two appear to mean the same thing.

Official English translations have translated “综合国力” in several ways over the years. These include: “overall strength” in the 14th and 19th Party Congress reports; “overall national strength” in the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th Party Congress reports; and “composite national strength” in the 20th Party Congress Report. “Composite national strength” is also used to translate “综合国力” in the 2021 Party Resolution on History. At times, however, even official translations use different terminology within the same document. For example, the 14th Party Congress Report issued by Jiang Zemin in 1992 translated “综合国力” as “overall strength of the country,” “overall capacity of the country,” and “overall national strength.” It is easy in reading only the English translations to not recognize that these three translations are all of the same term. Of course, terms can translate differently upon different uses as well, though that does not seem the case in the 14th Party Congress Report.

[3] One exception is an insightful 2000 study by Michael Pillsbury. Which laid a strong foundational framing of the discussion of CNP in the 1990s (Pillsbury, Michael, China Debates the Future Security Environment, National Defense University Press, 2000). This paper seeks to not only step off from that strong framework but to develop how the PRC has resourced the pursuit of, and focus on, CNP over the ensuing 25 years.

[4] This came in a speech delivered at the Fourth National Congress of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) in 1991.

[5] Liu, Mingfu, The China Dream: Great Power Thinking & Strategic Posture in the Post-American Era, CN Times Books, Inc., New York, NY, 2015, p. 80–81. (The original Chinese version was published in 2009.) Liu, and this book in particular, are somewhat controversial, with many arguing that Western academics and scholars give Liu more credit than he deserves for influence within the Chinese system. However, it does seem consistent with two continuing lines of attack the PRC government uses in the information space against the United States. The first is the “weaponization” of democracy, which is clearly articulated across government documents. For example, see the 2021 and 2022 Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports titled “The State of Democracy in the United States,” which criticizes the U.S. system, and in particular U.S. democracy. The 2021 report, for example, warned “Any attempt to push for a single or absolute model of democracy, use democracy as an instrument or a weapon in international relations, or advocate bloc politics and bloc confrontation will be a breach of the spirit of solidarity and cooperation which is critical in troubled times.” The foreign minister’s statement, meanwhile, said that democracy “has become a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ used by the United States to interfere in other countries’ affairs” (MFA, December 7, 2021, December 11, 2021). The second line of argument advanced by the PRC government that is consistent with Liu’s framing is the notion of a “democratic international order” that it has pressed for over the past several decades (MFA, June 19, 2022; Xinhua, April 25, 2023).

[6] The following is a list of key individuals and organizations involved in CNP-related research since the 1980s:

  • Huang Shuofeng, who led a team at NDU from the 1980s until his death in 2006. That work produced at least three books examining CNP.
  • Wu Chunqiu, at AMS, published a book in 1998 on Chinese grand strategy that examined CNP and systems analysis in great detail. Wu remains actively engaged on these issues today.
  • Jiang Luming (姜鲁鸣), also at NDU, continues to shape the discussion on CNP through his work developing the Military-Civil Fusion Development Strategy, one of seven CCP national development strategies underpinning Chinese pursuit of CNP.
  • Hu Angang, who served as chief editor of China Study (国情报告), an annual journal published by Tsinghua University that tracked and measured CNP from 1991–2012, when its publication appears to have stopped.
  • Men Honghua (们红花), President of the Institute for China and the World at Tongji University and formerly of the Center for China Studies at Tsinghua University.
  • Yan Xuetong (阎学通), a prominent Chinese scholar at Tsinghua University and Dean of the Institute of International Relations.
  • Teams at CASS, CICIR, and other places across the Chinese system have devoted significant efforts to building CCP understanding of CNP.
  • The National Bureau of Statistics and the National Development and Reform Commission, among others, also have devoted significant time to measuring CNP.

[7] For example, in 2002, Jiang Zemin called for ensuring CNP “reached a new level” (再上一个大台阶). In the 18th Party Congress Report, Hu Jintao reported that CNP had “stepped up to a new level” (迈上一个大台阶).

[8] At some point the focus on CNP shifted away from the “World Economic Yellow Book” (世界经济黄皮书) to the “Yellow Book of International Politics: Annual Report on International Politics and Security” (国际形势黄皮书：全球政治与安全报告).

[9] Jia Haitao, Comprehensive National Power and Cultural Soft Power Systems Research, Beijing, China: China Academy of Social Sciences Publishing House, 2015, p. 33.

 

Appendix: A Note on Methodology

The theory and methodology of this series of articles is based on an assumption that comprehensively analyzing three key bodies of literature produced in the PRC over the past 40 years sheds light on the theoretical, ideological, and policy intent of the Party’s approach to strategic competition with the West.

The first is a deep body of literature by traditional academics and researchers at Chinese universities, PRC academic institutions with direct government affiliation at places like National Defense University in Beijing, and pseudo-government academics at think tanks like the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) or the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), both of which are directly affiliated with the PRC government. In particular, this study focuses on the work produced by such researchers over nearly four decades in the fields of CNP, grand strategy, great power relations, and Chinese development strategies, among others. These authors, and their work, scoped understanding of CNP and international competition across Chinese academia, the PRC government and the CCP, developing the theoretical framework for CNP and international competition. Much of this research and writing was done at the behest of the PRC government and the CCP, largely funded by government programs. Their work does not represent official government positions, necessarily, but much of it was done at the behest of state and Party organs.

The second body of literature consists of key CCP and PRC government documents produced from 1978 to the present. This includes speeches by senior CCP officials, Party Congress reports, government work reports, Five Year Plans, the evolution of the CCP Party Charter, national development strategies, Party guidance, and “outline” (纲要) and “decision” (决定) documents, among others. The Party documents serve as the cornerstone to understanding the CCP’s ideological framing of strategic competition, including strategies and implementation instructions disseminated to the Party’s 100 million members around the world. They serve as a blueprint of CCP intent. While these documents outline CCP ideology and strategic intent, they do not reflect pursuit of that intent. For that reason, the third body of literature critical to this series includes policy and strategy implementation documents developed by the PRC and CCP since the early 1990s, which shed light on resources being devoted to the pursuit of outlined intent, and offer measurable data to gauge success in pursuit of outlined strategies.

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