The chapters in this volume were originally presented as papers at the 2017 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Conference convened by the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and the Department of the Army. Organized around the theme

“Securing the China Dream: The PLA’s Role in a Time of Reform and Change,” the conference focused on the impact of China’s changingpolitical landscape, military restructuring, and modernization on the PLA’s ability to fulfill its strategic objective of fighting and winning informationized local wars. The seven papers collected in this volume examine how an increasingly advanced PLA capable of undertaking complex joint operations approaches both long-standing missions in support of core national objectives, such as reunification with Taiwan, and emerging missions in support of China’s increasingly ambitious foreign policy in the Xi Jinping era, such as the security of the Belt and Road Initiative.