The Evolution of Chinese Wargaming

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is turning towards technology-intensive, and increasingly AI-enabled, wargaming. Alessandro Arduino and Rong Yuan contend that the principal divergence with the West lies not in whether AI is used at all, but in the degree to which Chinese writings envision AI as part of a wider human–machine decision architecture. They argue that the PLA is not simply incorporating wargaming as a pedagogical add-on, but is using it to drive institutional transformation. In doing so, it is constructing a routinised infrastructure for continuous experimentation and systematic familiarisation of command.