December 29, 2025: China is reforming and reorganizing its Special Operations Forces/SOF. This is a process that began in 2017. This included the use of twelve-man teams and increased emphasis on training and special equipment for these commandos. China believes it will take until 2049 for Chinese SOF training and equipment upgrades to be complete. At that point China will have over 40,000 SOF personnel. Currently China has about 25,000 personnel in its SOF units. Some 80 percent belong to the army, with the air force, navy and rocket forces having the rest.

At a recent international SOF competition in Serbia, the Chinese SOP personnel performed as if they were inexperienced and inadequately trained. The current organization consists of fifteen army brigades and one brigade each for the marines, airborne forces and the rocket forces. The army brigades consist of 2,000-3,000 personnel. The other services have regiments of about a thousand SOF personnel. The national police also has SOF units, which are largely more like police SWAT/Special Weapons and Tactics teams. The police are in the process of training some of their units to the same level as the army SOF units. Retired army SOF personnel are hired for this work. The police want to be less dependent on the military SOF to take care of extreme situations.

There is a loosely connected international SOF community. Chinese SOF personnel know what the foreign SOF teams can do and how they acquired their skills. For a long time Chinese military commanders ignored the superiority of foreign SOF. Now they have been ordered to meet the highest standards and have been given cash, access to the best personnel and equipment and told to get it done in 24 years or else.

China began organizing commando units in the late 1980s. This was seen as an experiment but, after noting the success of American and British commandos in the 1991 Gulf War, the Chinese decided to push the concept throughout their armed forces. Unfortunately, they appear to have diluted their efforts by establishing special operations units in each of the seven military districts, as well as in the navy and the Airborne Corps. There were two Special Warfare Corps, but most of the commando troops in China were more like SWAT teams for use against criminal gangs and dissidents, rather than special operations troops in the American sense.

China has also developed systems to counter hostile commandos threatening Chinese facilities. Since the 1990s China has been installing more and more 55mm DP-65 remotely controlled anti-swimmer grenade launching systems on its ships and in some coastal bases. This is because more Chinese ships are visiting foreign ports and need that kind of protection. The DP-65 is also seen on the platforms China is building on or near disputed rocks, reefs, and uninhabited islands in the South China Sea.

The DP-65 uses a special kind of sonar to detect swimmers nearby. The six barrel DP-65 is designed to defeat underwater attackers using scuba gear to approach and plant bombs or simply seek out information. The 55mm grenades are similar to those found on RPGs but have a flare at the end so that sailors on shore can see where it lands and know where the swimmer might be. The 55mm grenade has a fuze which sets off the warhead when the grenade reaches a preset depth. When the grenade explodes it will kill or injure any swimmer within 16 meters.