CNP Part IV: Calculation Holds Keys to Strategic Competition
Executive Summary:
- The Party pins its legitimacy to success in developing “comprehensive national power” (CNP). Understanding how it conceptualizes CNP may enable the United States to identify effective ways for integrated deterrence to target vulnerabilities the Party has identified and drive perceptions that reduce the leadership’s confidence across constituent elements of CNP.
- CNP growth in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will not be linear in the coming years, and Beijing’s approach to measuring CNP could lead to dangerous miscalculation. For instance, U.S. and Western policies that force the CCP to overinvest in science and technology at the expense of other elements of national power could be destabilizing; and political sensitivities within the Party could lead to mistakes in how CNP is measured, leading to policies that could unintentionally worsen CNP.
- The PRC has significant staying power and will remain a formidable challenger to the United States over the coming decades. It could even achieve preeminent status in CNP rank globally without ever passing the United States in terms of total GDP.
- As confidence in the PRC’s comparative position grows, growing dissatisfaction with the international order will likely change what deters Beijing over time. If ongoing attempts to enhance the country’s discourse power fail to translate its accrued national strength as measured by CNP into a more powerful position globally, Party leaders may turn to more assertive methods.
- Deterring the PRC at the strategic level over the coming decades would require undermining Chinese confidence in its assessments of the “two trends” (两个大局)—national rejuvenation and changes unseen in a century—that Chinese analysts and CCP leaders assess reflect a shift in the global balance of power as measured by CNP.
- This deterrence will depend in part on understanding that Beijing sees its “gray zone” actions in the context of CNP competition, as attempts to undermine U.S. power and improve the PRC’s relative position without crossing thresholds that would trigger responses in ways that damage its pursuit of CNP.
Editor’s note: This is the final article in a four-part series. The previous three articles can be read here, here, and here.
For decades, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has placed the development and expansion of comprehensive national power (CNP; 综合国力) at the center of both Party ideological frameworks and its understanding of international competition. [1] Its current general secretary, Xi Jinping, has repeatedly tied CNP to core issues of Party legitimacy. In 2018, he explained that “liberating and developing social productive forces and enhancing the [CNP] of socialist countries is socialism’s essential demand and fundamental task” (解放和发展社会生产力，增强社会主义国家的综合国力，是社会主义的本质要求和根本任务), echoing a formulation established by Deng Xiaoping nearly 30 years earlier (Xinhua, December 18, 2018). [2] In 2021, he framed success in the Party’s core aim of achieving national rejuvenation in terms of winning the advantage in CNP competition, linking this directly to another pillar of the Party’s legitimacy (Xinhua, September 26, 2021). [3]
In the coming years, efforts to build CNP in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will increasingly emphasize dominating technological innovation. Recent statements by leading CCP figures and in top Party publications make a clear link between CNP as the key metric by which the leadership assesses PRC national strength and advances in strategic and emerging technologies. Politburo standing committee member Ding Xuexiang (丁薛祥) recently described computing power as “an important manifestation of a nation’s CNP” (国家综合国力的重要体现); and shortly thereafter a People’s Daily article described leading science and technology talents as “a concentrated reflection of a country’s … CNP” (一个国家的 … 综合国力的集中体现) (People’s Daily, May 19, May 30).
Pinning success in developing CNP on the Party’s legitimacy narratives makes the stakes very high, particularly as its pursuit of CNP faces challenges, including from competition with the United States. A decline in the country’s comparative CNP and lost ground in its efforts to change the international order would reflect negatively on the Party leadership, perhaps in dangerous ways for either the leadership core or the Party more broadly. While the CCP continues to assess that it is on a long-term positive trajectory, that trajectory will not be linear. Bad policy choices could damage CNP growth, and provide openings that the United States or others could exploit.
Growing CNP Could Lead to More Aggressive Behavior
Evolving out of the 19th Party Congress in 2017, the CCP leadership has expressed increasing dissatisfaction with efforts to translate its accrued national strength as measured by CNP into a more powerful position globally. Efforts to date have focused on enhancing the country’s discourse power, but if this fails then Chinese leaders may turn to more assertive methods in the coming decade, perhaps leading to a far more dangerous PRC (China Brief, January 6). The combination of increased confidence in its comparative position globally, continued expansion of CNP across core elements of national strength, and growing dissatisfaction with the international order will likely change what deters Beijing over time, increasing the risk for those working to ensure that the CCP remains deterred from destabilizing military action in the region or coercive economic or political actions globally.
PRC behavior internationally has already changed as Chinese analysts and CCP leaders have become more confident in the PRC’s relative power in the international system. This shift will complicate how the lessons learned from Chinese behavior over the period 1978–2010 informs and enables prediction of how the country may act in the future. For example, a common perspective among China analysts is that Chinese leaders are so concerned with their international reputation that they will not take aggressive actions or can be shamed into “responsible” behavior as the West might define it. As Chinese confidence in its position globally continues to grow, however, Beijing instead will be less concerned with reputational costs. This has played out in recent years in the South China Sea, where significant public attention to destabilizing and aggressive Chinese actions against the Philippines has had little discernable impact on PRC behavior to date (China Brief, April 28, 2008, June 21, 2013, June 21, 2024, June 11). This publicity may even reinforce Beijing’s efforts to deter other actors in the region by demonstrating strength and will against potential adversaries.
Miscalculation Would be Dangerous
The PRC’s approach to measuring CNP could lead to dangerous miscalculation and overconfidence. Its current strategic buildup risks reaching a point at which the Chinese military finally assesses that it has accrued enough national defense power to deter the United States and/or U.S. allies from entering a conflict over Taiwan or elsewhere. Overconfidence in the deterrence capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army’s strategic forces, especially in combination with a rapidly expanding conventional force, risks leading to aggressive actions and miscalculation of the PRC’s own ability to deter the United States and others. Assessments made in 2020 noted that national defense strength was lagging behind economic strength, science and technology (S&T) strength, and CNP, all of which leaped ahead during the 13th five-year plan period (2016–2020) (Xinhua, November 26, 2020). This was despite the 2020 edition of the Science of Military Strategy discussing the critical importance of military strength to national defense strength within CNP as the “backbone of … war strength” (战争实力 … 的骨干力量) (Xiao, ed., 2020). [4]
Flaws in its approach to measuring CNP could at the same time lead to opportunities for the United States and its allies. For instance, the CCP believes that a lack of even and coordinated distribution of development across individual CNP subsystems will lead to instability (China Brief, September 26, 2025). Under this view, overinvestment in one area could come at the cost of other critical elements of CNP. This was a key factor in the downfall of the Soviet Union, which the United States drove to pursue unbalanced investment across its system. The CCP’s continued focus on the importance of balance across its subsystems suggests that a similar strategy could be applied to U.S.–PRC competition should competition grow that intense in the coming decades.
Another flaw in CNP calculations may lie in political sensitivities that could impact the measurement of CNP. This would lead to bad policies, which in turn could unintentionally worsen the country’s CNP. For instance, “soft power” elements of CNP—such as political strength, diplomatic strength, and culture and education strength—can be assigned negative values when calculating CNP, according to the theorist Huang Shuofeng (黄朔风). These elements are all far more politically sensitive than economic or S&T strength and are less easy to measure, though they also face degrees of political sensitivity (Huang, 2006). [5] A negative score in political strength would be reflective of poor leadership, poor management of the system, or policies and strategies that are not working. Although Huang’s is only one scale offered and may not reflect the current methodology used, any internal methodology would have trouble accurately measuring political strength due to the sensitive considerations involved. The same goes for national cohesion as described within CNP literature, which continues to be reinforced by the coercive power of the state. [6]
CNP Calculation Presents Avenues for Competitive Action
Soft spots in the PRC’s approach to calculating CNP are potential targets for competitive actions that undermine the Chinese leadership’s confidence in its assessments. [7] These could complicate its pursuit of CNP growth by forcing it to take policy and strategy decisions that derail its progress. For instance, if the CCP is unable to resolve current economic challenges, the country may never achieve the leading position in the international system as measured by CNP, which is a clear strategic objective. Moreover, if its economic slowdown continues for a decade or more, strict export controls, reduced access to the Western S&T ecosystem, and continued de-risking of U.S. and European S&Tfocused enterprises could force the PRC to overinvest in S&T at the expense of other CNP elements. This ultimately could undermine top leadership confidence in its status and suggest that the CCP, or at least relevant Party officials, are responsible for mismanagement.
Setbacks will not automatically spell the end of the PRC’s CNP growth, however, whether from a slowing economy or otherwise. If the system can find ways to effectively manage its problems, other drivers will ensure that the country’s rise can be maintained. The PRC as a result may be able to achieve preeminent status in CNP rank globally across all core elements of CNP without ever passing the United States in terms of total GDP. This is because CNP depends on how different constituent elements are weighted in the calculation of CNP and how they interact within the CNP system (and react to variables outside of the open system) (China Brief, September 5, 2025). Understanding Chinese calculations of comparative CNP should shed light on where CCP leaders perceive the PRC to be positioned in competition and how CCP approaches to risk may be evolving.
Deterring the PRC at the strategic level over the coming decades would require undermining Chinese confidence in its assessments of the “two trends” (两个大局)—national rejuvenation and changes unseen in a century—that Chinese analysts and CCP leaders assess reflect a shift in the global balance of power as measured by CNP. Deterrence is a critical element of national defense power, both for the PRC’s expanding capabilities, and for the United States and its allies and partners to continue deterring destabilizing Chinese actions.
In projecting the future of Chinese thinking on CNP competition, two critical elements will be important to assess. First, past experience does not predict future performance. The PRC’s impressive rise over the past 40 years does not mean that its rise will continue or that it will achieve its goals without any decline in power. Chinese scholars have discussed within the CNP literature the dangers of being the number two CNP power behind the United States, examining how both the Soviet Union and Japan stalled out and failed to surpass the United States during the 20th century. In this vein, Yan Xuetong (阎学通) warned in 2015 that bad policy decisions by the Chinese leadership can cause economic and military strength to decline (Yan, 2015). [8]
Second, challenges to certain CNP elements do not automatically entail an overall decline in CNP. The PRC has overcome significant challenges to date, or at least addressed them in ways that have enabled continued growth of CNP and modernization. Similarly, its path over the next 20 years is unlikely to be linear. The country has significant staying power and will remain a formidable economic, military, technological, and ideological challenger to the United States over the coming decades. Its emergence as a globally-leading innovation country will further impact its regional and global power in the coming decades, underpinning the CCP’s ability to continue challenging the international order.
Conclusion
CNP measurements play an important role in the PRC’s policymaking process but are poorly understood. This directly impacts how countries might respond to the PRC’s continued aggressive actions short of armed conflict. Often described as “gray zone tactics,” these actions are better considered within the context of CNP competition. Wu Chunqiu (吴春秋), a scholar at the Academy of Military Sciences, pointed out in 1998—in analysis that was reiterated over the years in other Chinese documents—that CNP competition focuses across core constituent strength elements of CNP, such as economic competition, political competition, and S&T competition. In that context, the PRC is waging strategic competition in the “gray zone,” trying to undermine U.S. power and improve the PRC’s relative position without crossing thresholds that would trigger the United States (or others) to respond in ways that damage Chinese pursuit of CNP. In 2002, Wu explained 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, technological war … a war of comprehensive national power.” [9] This notion was also prevalent in the 2020 Science of Military Strategy. [10]
Understanding how the CCP and PRC scholars conceptualize CNP offers valuable insights into how Chinese leaders, policy makers, and strategists understand competition with the West, the PRC’s role in the world, and how the country is progressing toward rejuvenation. Tracking these estimates over time may enable the United States to be more strategic and targeted in its approach to competition.
Examining the PRC’s approach to CNP holistically should identify effective ways for integrated deterrence to target the PRC’s own identified vulnerabilities and drive perceptions that reduce CCP leadership confidence across all constituent elements of CNP. While a CCP that realizes it may fall short, or even go backwards in global CNP rank, suggests the potential for Beijing to lash out, the CCP’s ambitions and the world it seeks to develop are far more dangerous should they succeed in their mission to become the world leading CNP power by 2049.
All views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government, Department of War, or U.S. Pacific Command.
Notes
[1] The PRC’s approach to building CNP should not be overstated. Although Chinese leaders and elites have long held the goal of making the country strong and rich, this is not to say they have always had a singular vision of what that means or how to get there. Despite CNP being a common frame over the past 40 years, bureaucratic infighting, contradictory self-interest of officials and government entities, and the complication of moving a system as large as the PRC’s in one singular direction is an enormous challenge. In addition, as is always the case within Chinese bureaucracy, while CNP is referenced and pointed to in documents across the system, it is often difficult to discern whether this is because of its central importance, or whether it is a code word of sorts that helps justify resource requests.
[2] This quote also appears in a volume published by the United Front Work Department of the Party Committee of China University of Mining and Technology, United Front Information, 2018 (2), p. 6–7.
[3] Xi is quoted as having said, “gaining the upper hand in [CNP] competition is key to national rejuvenation. It is precisely because we possess the greatest advantage of the Party’s leadership that we have become the greatest positive force shaping changes unseen in a century” (在综合国力的竞争中赢得先机是民族复兴的关键。正因为拥有党的领导这一最大优势，我们成为决定世界百年未有之大变局的最大正能量). To be sure, it remains difficult to discern how CNP measures influence CCP decision-making, whether they allocate resources based on CNP examination, as scholars in the 1990s emphasized, or the extent to which changes in foreign policy can be attributed to CCP assessments of comparative CNP. The body of literature examined in this series suggests they do change policy based on comparative CNP, but how that happens is less clear. The 2013 reassessment of the PRC’s development status as “unbalanced and uneven” (不平衡、不协调) and the formulation of the new “primary contradiction in Chinese society” (社会主要矛盾) outlined in 2017 would suggest that they are in fact using such measures to inform decisions, especially with the launching of new development strategies to address those assessments. Foreign policy behavior after 2010 would also suggest that Chinese assessments of having achieved the status of the second largest CNP-power in the world did in fact change Chinese foreign policy. CNP measures may simply be used to assess where the PRC is within global competition and to assess trend lines in comparative power.
[4] Lt. Gen. Xiao Tianliang, ed., The Science of Military Strategy (2020 Edition), January 2020, National Defense University Press, 2020, p. 26–32. The full sentence reads: “因此，综合国力是制定和实施战略的客观物质基础。它不仅是战略手段的基本依托，而且对战略目标的确定有着直接影响。一个国家的综合国力主要包括以下要素 … 其中军事能力是战争实力与潜力中的骨干力量，对战略具有直接影响和制约.”
[5] Huang Shuofeng, Rivalries Between Major Powers: A Comparison of World Powers’ Comprehensive National Power [大国较量：世界主要国家综合国力国际比较], (Beijing: World Affairs Press, August 2006), p. 103–104. Huang is a former scholar at National Defense University who published the first major study on the country’s CNP in 1984 and devised ways to calculate it. He explained in this 2006 work that the “soft power” elements of CNP are ranked on a sliding scale starting from negative one.
[6] Messaging, information, and education campaigns have worked for 30 years to craft a national and nationalistic identity. It remains unclear if cultural strength, which relies on national identity and cohesion, can be artificially created by the state, as the CCP hopes to engineer within the PRC. It also remains difficult to see how Chinese measures of CNP can accurately reflect cultural power and national cohesion without dangerously pointing to flaws within the CCP.
[7] The PRC is confident that information operations can undermine social cohesion. In 2020, cybersecurity firm Mandiant and Google reported that Chinese disinformation related to the killing of George Floyd sought to mobilize U.S. citizens to protest against their government. The Party likely assesses that similar operations against the PRC would pose a significant threat to the Party.
[8] Yan Xuetong, The Transfer of World Power: Political Leadership and Strategic Competition (Beijing: Peking University Press, September 2015). Yan was highlighting bad decisions made during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, but the point would still apply to today’s leadership and would fall under the core CNP element of political strength. Yan also wrote in 2013 that if the PRC stayed the course of reform and opening that had been the hallmark of Chinese policy from 1978–2013, it undoubtedly would continue to grow its CNP and close the gap with the United States. It is unclear both whether the significant policy changes over the last ten years have changed his assessment or whether he would be able to offer an accurate assessment of the effect of those changes on CNP.
[9] Wu Chunqiu, “Dialectics and the Study of Grand Strategy: A Chinese View,” Chinese Military Science, 2002 No. 3, p. 152.
[10] Supra [4].
