The book tracks the reforms undertaken by the PLA as part of the grand objectives set at the 2015 Central Military Commission Reform Work Meeting: for China’s armed forces to transform themselves into a more professional and modern military. Focusing on those changes since late 2016 at corps level and below, the first and second sections of the volume document the subsequent force structure and operational changes to the PLA’s four conventional services, and two newly established PLA branches: the Strategic Support Force and Joint Logistic Support Force. To that end, the contributors examine the reforms promulgated by the Chinese high command and measure them against observable developments in the PLA’s power projection capabilities. In view of how the instrumentalization of military power is writ large in Beijing’s strategic calculus and in regional hotspot issues, the final part of the book also provides pathbreaking insights into two critical but not-so-well-understood phenomena: the now regular PLA aerial activities in the Taiwan Strait and the PLA Navy’s submarine operations in the South China Sea.