Founding of China's Second Artillery Corps, Forerunner of the PLA Rocket Force (1966)
On July 1, 1966, the People's Republic of China formally established the Second Artillery Corps, a secretive new branch of the People's Liberation Army tasked with controlling the nation's emerging nuclear and missile arsenal. Created under the direct authority of Premier Zhou Enlai just two years after China's first atomic bomb test, the force operated under a deliberately vague name to mask its strategic nuclear mission. Nearly five decades later, in 2015, it was reorganized and renamed the PLA Rocket Force, becoming the PLA's fourth official service branch and the modern custodian of China's land-based ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile capabilities.
Origins in the Nuclear Age
China's push into missile and nuclear technology accelerated after the Soviet Union withdrew technical assistance in 1960, forcing Chinese scientists and engineers to develop capabilities largely on their own. On October 16, 1964, China successfully detonated its first atomic device at the Lop Nur test site, instantly joining the small club of nuclear-armed nations. This breakthrough created an urgent need for a dedicated military organization to store, maintain, and eventually deploy nuclear warheads atop missiles. Premier Zhou Enlai, working closely with Mao Zedong, oversaw the creation of this new force, insisting on strict centralized control given the catastrophic stakes involved. The result, established on July 1, 1966, was the Second Artillery Corps, a name chosen specifically for its blandness—suggesting nothing more than conventional artillery support rather than revealing its true role as guardian of China's strategic deterrent. Only months after its founding, on October 27, 1966, China conducted its first successful test combining a nuclear warhead with an actual missile, the Dongfeng-2, launched from Jiuquan and detonating over the Lop Nur test range roughly 550 miles away. This achievement demonstrated that the young service could already deliver nuclear weapons via missile rather than aircraft alone.
Did You Know?
The name "Second Artillery Corps" was intentionally chosen in 1966 to sound unremarkable, disguising the fact that the unit controlled China's nuclear missiles—the force wasn't renamed the more descriptive "PLA Rocket Force" until nearly 50 years later, on December 31, 2015.
Decades of Secrecy and Growth
For much of the Cold War, the Second Artillery Corps operated with extraordinary secrecy, its very existence rarely acknowledged in Chinese state media until decades after its founding. Unlike the PLA's Army, Navy, and Air Force, it was officially classified as an independent branch directly subordinate to the Central Military Commission rather than a full service in its own right. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the corps expanded its arsenal from early liquid-fueled missiles like the Dongfeng-2 and Dongfeng-3 to more sophisticated solid-fueled systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the continental United States, such as the Dongfeng-31 and Dongfeng-5. The force also developed shorter-range missiles aimed at regional contingencies, most notably systems tested prominently during the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, when China fired missiles into waters near Taiwan to signal displeasure over political developments. Throughout this period, the Second Artillery Corps remained one of the most opaque institutions within the Chinese military, with foreign analysts relying heavily on satellite imagery and occasional defector testimony to estimate the size and composition of its missile inventory, which grew to include thousands of personnel organized into multiple missile bases and brigades across China's interior.
Transformation into the Rocket Force
The corps underwent its most significant transformation on December 31, 2015, when President Xi Jinping announced sweeping reforms to the PLA's command structure. As part of this overhaul, the Second Artillery Corps was formally redesignated the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force, elevating it to the status of a full, independent service branch alongside the Army, Navy, and Air Force—making it the PLA's fourth service. Xi personally presented the new force's flag at a ceremony in Beijing, emphasizing its role as a core pillar of China's strategic deterrence and a symbol of the country's rising military modernization. Under its new name, the PLARF assumed responsibility for an expanding and increasingly diverse arsenal, including hypersonic glide vehicles like the DF-17, unveiled publicly in 2019, and conventional precision-strike missiles designed to hold adversary ships and bases at risk in a potential Indo-Pacific conflict. The rebranding also reflected a broader Chinese military strategy shift toward integrated joint operations, with the Rocket Force expected to coordinate closely with other services rather than function as an isolated, siloed command. Today, the PLARF is estimated to oversee several hundred nuclear warheads and a rapidly growing missile inventory, cementing its position as one of the most closely watched military organizations in the world amid ongoing strategic competition between China and the United States.