Executive Summary:
- Proposed revisions to the 2010 National Defense Mobilization Law ensure that the Party leadership can, at any time, activate the full weight of the country’s military, civilian, economic, and social resources and direct them toward strategic objectives.
- The revisions, which make the Party’s authority in security matters more explicit, target six areas: improving general provisions, adjusting organizational leadership structure, improving the basic work system for mobilization, establishing a reserve forces build-up and conscription system, improving the strategic material reserve system, and strengthening the national defense mobilization propaganda and education system.
- New language ensures the Party can trigger mobilization due to threats to “development interests,” whose expansive definition covers economic security, resource access, overseas assets, and technological development.
- A subtle change to language on operational readiness suggests a shift to a more flexible style of mobilization planning, which may be more suitable for unpredictable real-world contingencies.
In January 2014, a Study Times article discussed the recently created Central National Security Commission, saying that the new body would coordinate resources across a single peacetime–wartime system comprising military operations, national defense mobilization, and public security management (Study Times, January 27, 2014). In the 12 years since, those ambitions have been implemented across every domain of Party-state power. Sweeping adjustments to national security-related legislation, including the 2015 National Security Law, the 2017 National Intelligence Law, and the 2021 Data Security Law, have extended national security obligations to every registered individual and organization, including those operating outside the PRC; the national security apparatus has been restructured under more concentrated Party control; and the military–civil fusion development strategy has embedded national defense requirements into civilian industries, infrastructure, and technological development.
The government is now moving to codify these changes in law. In April, the National People’s Congress (NPC) proposed draft revisions to its National Defense Mobilization Law for the first time since its promulgation in 2010 (NPC Observer, April 27). The revisions to the law, which has provided a legal basis for integrating civilian resources into military operations, and which analysts have tied to the continued relevance of the Maoist theory of “people’s war,” are long overdue (China Brief, March 18, 2010, October 8, 2019). They follow a long period of institutional reform and reorganization across both the People’s Liberation Army and the National Defense Mobilization System (NDMS), some of which rendered the 2010 law obsolete (for example, the 2010 law referred to military regions that were abolished and replaced with theater commands in February 2016).
In 2019, the Party Central Committee formally decided to deepen NDMS structural reform (NPC Observer, April 30). Subsequently, in October 2021, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee quietly announced the temporary suspension of the application of relevant provisions of the National Defense Mobilization Law while reforms continued. The announcement signaled that the law would be revised “once reform measures have matured” (改革措施成熟后) (Xinhua, October 23, 2021). In the intervening period, substantial structural changes have been made to the NDMS, including with the establishment of national defense mobilization offices as the day-to-day affairs offices of existing national defense mobilization committees, which took place mainly in late 2022 and early 2023. An explanatory piece in the People’s Daily, citing completed institutional reforms and the 2021 suspension of relevant provisions, said the moment for legal revision had now arrived (People’s Daily, April 28).
The revisions target six areas, according to an explanatory note released by the NPC: improving general provisions (e.g. upholding Party leadership), adjusting organizational leadership structure, improving the basic work system for mobilization, establishing a reserve forces build-up and conscription system, improving the strategic material reserve system, and strengthening the national defense mobilization propaganda and education system (NPC Observer, April 30).
Mobilization Supports the Integrated National Strategic System and Capabilities
The new revisions ensure that the Party leadership can, at any time, activate the full weight of the country’s military, civilian, economic, and social resources and direct them toward strategic objectives. It does this through a modernized national defense mobilization system, which is an operational component of what the Party calls the “integrated national strategic system and capabilities” (INSSC; 一体化国家战略体系和能力)—its conception of aggregate national strength as calculated in terms of “comprehensive national power” (CNP; 综合国力) (China Brief, September 5, 2025, September 26, 2025).
The INSSC is designed to ensure that when confrontation comes, the Party-state’s national power can be brought to bear as a single coherent force (People’s Daily, March 11, 2023). General Secretary Xi Jinping first referred to it in his report to the 19th Party Congress in October 2017, which called for building an INSSC alongside “deepening the development of military–civil fusion” (军民融合深度发展) and “improving the national defense mobilization system” (完善国防动员体系) (Xinhua, October 18, 2017). The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan is the first to dedicate a full section to the INSSC. It explicitly calls for strengthening military–civilian strategic planning coordination, policy alignment, and resource sharing. Specifically, it calls for “upholding the principle of military–civilian integration and peacetime–wartime integration, accelerating national defense mobilization capacity building, strengthening reserve force building, coordinating the national defense mobilization and emergency management systems, and deepening co-construction and sharing of forces, important facilities, and dual-use equipment” (坚持军民一体、平战一体，加快国防动员能力建设，加强后备力量建设，统筹国防动员和应急管理体系，深化力量队伍、重要设施和通用装备共建共享) (Xinhua, March 13). [1]
At the core of the INSSC is the fusion of national development interests with national defense interests as part of a single overarching agenda. Xi Jinping described the INSSC in March 2023 as a strategic deployment with a view to “better overall planning of development and security, and better overall planning of economic construction and national defense construction” (更好统筹发展和安全、更好统筹经济建设和国防建设) (PLA Daily, March 9, 2023). The 2026 draft National Defense Mobilization Law encodes that fusion. Where the 2010 law aimed to protect sovereignty, unification, territorial integrity, and security, the 2026 version adds “development interests” (发展利益), which in PRC usage includes economic security, resource access, overseas assets, and technological development, not only territorial threats. This change aligns the law with the 2020 revised National Defense Law, which already permits the mobilization system to be triggered when the state’s development interests are threatened, confirming that this mechanism also covers development interests.
The draft revisions to the National Defense Mobilization Law do not refer to the INSSC by name but they provide specific guidance for implementing the INSSC’s requirements. These include expanding accountability, adding data and technology obligations, and broadening the scope of the organizations and individuals legally bound to operationalize the INSSC (NPC Observer, April 27). For example, one continuous peacetime obligation under the mobilization system has been the conduct of statistical surveys on mobilization potential, which assess available resources and capabilities across civilian and military sectors. The proposed revisions to the law strengthen the existing provisions on statistical surveys, integrating these into the government’s formal statistical system, establishing a dynamic update mechanism to ensure data is kept current and expanding liability for organizations and officials who refuse, delay, or falsify the required data (China National Defense Daily, July 17, 2019; NPC Observer, April 27).
Codifying the Party’s Leadership
The draft revisions to the National Defense Mobilization Law complete the alignment between the Central National Security Commission’s coordinating role and the mobilization system’s formal command structure. The most significant change, which appears in articles 3 and 16, is the placement of the national defense mobilization system under the leadership of the Party Central Committee. This replaces the 2010 law’s formula, which tasked the State Council and Central Military Commission (CMC) jointly with leading mobilization efforts and formulating guidelines, policies, and regulations—a dual structure that is now openly subordinated to the Party Center. The law does not fundamentally change the mobilization system’s relationship with state- and military-directed bodies, or their organizational structure beneath the CMC and State Council. While the Party leadership was always implied, it is now clearly stated. This change aligns with broader changes to the national security system under Xi Jinping.
The Central National Security Commission, as the “top-level cross-departmental discussion and coordination mechanism” (跨部门的最高决策和议事协调机构) that translates the comprehensive national security concept into policy and practice, sets the parameters within which the mobilization system operates (University of International Relations, 2014). [2] Although it is not explicitly mentioned in the proposed revised law, it sits at the center of any political decision-making that will precede a formal mobilization order and so is directly relevant to the national mobilization system.
The National Security Law codified the commission’s coordinating role in national security in 2015. Article 5 classified it as the “central national security leading mechanism” (中央国家安全领导机构) with overall responsibility for what article 49 highlighted as mechanisms for coordinating national security between center and local, military and civilian, different government departments, and different regions. It is also the principal relevant organ that article 65 states “has the right to restrict citizens’ and organizations’ rights and expand [their] obligations” (有权采取限制公民和组织权利、增加公民和组织义务) in a state of emergency, war, or national mobilization (NPC, July 1, 2015).
Where the Central National Security Commission coordinates national security at the strategic level, the draft revisions assign the National Defense Mobilization Commission (国家国防动员委员会) responsibility for translating that direction into specific national defense mobilization plans. This has been the role of national defense mobilization commissions in practice, but the 2010 law is far less explicit about their specific role in planning. Article 21 of the draft revisions directs commissions’ member units to “draft national defense mobilization-related plans for their respective industries and fields in accordance with their responsibilities” (按照职责拟订本行业、本领域国防动员相关规划) and provincial-level committees to organize drafting “national defense mobilization plans for their respective administrative regions” (组织拟订本行政区域国防动员规划). Article 22 sets out these same requirements for mobilization implementation plans.
On planning, there is a slight terminology change in the draft revisions compared to the 2010 law. Where the 2010 law used the term “operational (or combat) readiness plans” (战备计划), the 2026 revisions use the term “operational (or combat) readiness program (or scheme)” (战备方案). The change is subtle but noteworthy, because it moves from a more rigid “plan” to a more adaptive framing as a “program” or “scheme.” This suggests a shift to a more flexible style of mobilization planning, which may be more suitable for unpredictable real-world contingencies.
Enforcing Accountability
The mobilization system’s peacetime obligations binding civilian enterprises date to the 2010 law and remain in force in the draft revision. Article 9 carries forward the requirement that organizations and citizens must complete national defense mobilization preparation work in peacetime in accordance with the law. Under Article 58, units across a range of sectors are required to fulfill national defense service obligations and maintain professional support teams. These must be organized, trained, and capable of fulfilling their mobilization tasks when ordered. [3]
The 2026 draft significantly expands language on the enforcement of mobilization obligations. Article 5 establishes a target responsibility system (目标责任制) for mobilization work, mandating supervision and inspection of relevant central government organs, local governments, and military organs. Article 6 also establishes a “national defense mobilization capability testing and evaluation mechanism” (国防动员能力检验评估机制). The legal liability chapter (Chapter 13) is also substantially expanded to cover violations by citizens, enterprises, social organizations, and officials, which the NPC explanatory note frames as increasing the law’s “institutional rigidity and binding force” (制度刚性和约束力) (NPC Observer, April 30).
The draft also updates obligations that account for technological progress, reflecting major technological changes that have occurred since the 2010 law was enacted. Article 4 now mandates improvements to the system’s informatization and intelligentization levels (信息化智能化), article 7 establishes a dedicated data service guarantee system (数据服务保障制度), and article 58 now includes cybersecurity in a list of sectors responsible for fulfilling “national defense service obligations in accordance with the law” (应当依法担负国防勤务).
Conclusion
The proposed revisions to the National Defense Mobilization Law build on the national defense mobilization system codified in the current statute in ways that strengthen legal enforcement, institutional embeddedness, and technological relevance, creating a system that is more operationally coherent. After a 30-day public comment period closed at the end of May, the draft will likely undergo another two readings by the NPC Standing Committee and could be enacted as early as late 2026. Once enacted, the law codifies changes to the national defense mobilization system that have been well underway for years, bringing clarity to those reforms and their institutional implications.
Notes
[1] For more on the INSSC, see: Liza Tobin, Addis Goldman, and Katherine Kurata, “System by Design: The Evolution of China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy,” in Benjamin Frohman and Jeremy Rausch eds., The PLA’s Long March toward a World-Class Military: Progress, Obstacles, and Ambitions, The National Bureau of Asian Research, 2025;
Wang, Howard, “China Plans for ‘Total War’: Developing the Capacity to Defeat the ‘Strong Enemy’ of the United States,” Journal of Contemporary China April (2026), 1–15, doi:10.1080/10670564.2026.2662561;
Tang Junfeng [汤俊峰], “Deeply Grasp the Contemporary Requirements for Accelerating the Development of Advanced Combat Capabilities (In-depth Study and Implementation of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era: A Comprehensive Discussion of Original and Iconic Concepts)” [深刻把握加快先进战斗力建设的时代要求（深入学习贯彻习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想·原创性概念标识性概念纵横谈）], People’s Daily [人民日报], November 17, 2025, p. 9, https://archive.ph/80nzA#selection-1463.1-1469.19.
[2] “Annual Report on China’s National Security Studies 2014 [中国国家安全研究报告 2014],” University of International Relations Center for International Strategy and Security Studies [中国国际关系学院国际战略与安全研究中心], 133.
[3] The full list of sectors include transportation, postal services, telecommunications, cybersecurity, medical and pharmaceutical supply, food and grain supply, engineering and construction, energy and chemicals, large water facilities, civilian nuclear facilities, news media, defense research and production, and municipal infrastructure.
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