- State affiliation · China
- Vigil category device · not official insignia
Identity provenance
State affiliation: China.
Vigil category device — drawn from this record’s own domain, echelon and role. Not an official insignia.
In brief
The force that held the PLA's space, cyber, electronic and information functions from 2015 until it was eliminated in April 2024 — the structure most pre-2024 analysis describes.
- Scope
- Structure, role, lineage and links. No subordinate records published.
- Subordination
- Historical subordination · until 2024-04
- Sources
- 5 on the record
- Record state
- Partial
Broad area of activity
Chinese territory; a functional remit, dissolved in 2024
Notable history
Created on 31 December 2015 as one of the signature institutions of the PLA reforms, the Strategic Support Force gathered space, cyber, electronic warfare and information functions that had previously been scattered across the general departments. For eight years it was the organisation Western analysis pointed to when describing how China intended to fight an "informationised" war, and a large body of published work is written about it. On 19 April 2024 it was eliminated. Its Space Systems Department became the Aerospace Force, its Network Systems Department the Cyberspace Force, and its information-communication base was elevated and became the Information Support Force; all three now report directly to the Central Military Commission alongside the pre-existing Joint Logistics Support Force. The most careful published analysis of the change states plainly that the reason for it is not clear from available sources.
Strengths
As an institution it did what it was designed to do — it consolidated functions that had been divided — and the three organisations that replaced it inherited that consolidation rather than undoing it.
Limitations
Its dissolution is the reason to treat pre-2024 descriptions of PLA space and cyber organisation with care rather than as current: a source that says "the SSF is responsible for X" is describing a structure that ended in April 2024, and the module does not silently map such claims onto whichever successor seems closest. Where the SSF's political-warfare and Taiwan-directed psychological-operations elements went is specifically not established, and that gap is recorded rather than filled.
Lineage & institutional history
Successors: PLA Information Support Force · PLA Aerospace Force · PLA Cyberspace Force
Subordinate to the Central Military Commission from its establishment on 31 December 2015 until 19 April 2024, when it was eliminated and its component organisations were reconstituted as three separate arms reporting to the CMC.
Assessed as of2026-09Last reviewed2026-09-09
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