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This paper studies the strategic outlook of the world's largest yet understudied armed force ? China's People's Liberation Army (PLA). With its sheer size, rapidly increasing capabilities, and uncertain intentions, the PLA's assessment of the country's external security environment entails profound implications for international relations. China has the world's largest military (with a manpower of over 2.3 million), second highest defense spending ($90 billion in 2004, by Pentagon's estimates; or $25.6 billion, by China's Defense White Paper), and one of the fastest-growing economies serving as the resource base for double-digit increases in defense spending for each of the past 15 years and for rapidly expanding its military capabilities. Yet, studying China's strategic intentions faces methodological challenges. China's decision-making process is opaque; its top leadership is not accountable to the electorate. A peculiar "civilian control of the military" ensures that the military will protect the party's interests. Access is guarded. Top generals rarely give interviews and their public statements echo top party leaders' statements. Discussions with "think tanks" affiliated with PLA tend to be formalistic. Moreover, a "strategic culture" of realism and a "cult of defense" combine to give Chinese an edge in deception and asymmetry. For a question crucial to U.S. national security, these problems have confounded scholars and policy-makers.The PLA's stated raison d'être is to "safeguard China's sovereignty and territorial integrity" and preventing Taiwan's formal independence for now (or, in the future, incorporating Taiwan through force) has provided the impetus for the modernization of this armed force. But will China's aspirations increase with growing capabilities? The "Taiwan issue" thus provides a good angle to understand and evaluate China's perception and assessment of its security environment in the first decade of the 21st century.This paper tackles four questions: (1) How to disentangle the PLA's worldviews from those of China's civilian party leaders? (2) Compared to civilian leaders, is the military more hardline on issues perceived to pertain to sovereignty and territorial integrity but also more cautious on the use of force? (3) Are there subtle differences within the PLA -- by services, cohorts, doctrines -- on key strategic issues? (4) How does China's military development coalesce with the current leadership's stated strategy of "peaceful rise"? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]