Might China execute a particular forces operation just like the US precision Maduro abduction?

The acute precision of the U.S. in its Venezuelan operation exhibits why nations should be capable of execute a posh particular surgical strike, in keeping with analysts who mentioned China had lengthy pursued the potential however had but to grasp it.

In a posh joint endeavour integrating its air pressure, navy, intelligence companies and house and cyber items, the U.S. navy’s elite Delta Power particular mission unit accomplished its precision raid in Caracas – from infiltration to exfiltration – in lower than three hours, abducting Venezuelan chief Nicolas Maduro and his spouse and taking them to the U.S.

“Operation Absolute Resolve” was a fruits of years of creating multi-domain operations, classes from a long time of world engagement – each successes and failures – and the superior integration of intelligence from many sources, in keeping with Joshua Arostegui, chair of the China Landpower Research Centre on the U.S. Military Warfare Faculty.

Because of China’s fast navy modernisation, the Individuals’s Liberation Military (PLA) has lots of the belongings the U.S. showcased in Venezuela, together with fifth-generation stealth fighters, trendy naval techniques, cyber and digital warfare platforms, superior helicopters and precision munitions.

However there was a vital hole between China and the U.S. in integrating them for “all-domain operations”, Arostegui famous.

“The flexibility to successfully allow the ‘convergence’ of the totally different domains [that] these weapons and techniques use or management is what differentiates the U.S. navy and the PLA presently,” he mentioned.

Regardless of years of efforts to enhance its personal all-domain operation capabilities, the PLA would nonetheless “battle” to hold out a stand-alone particular operation much like the U.S. mannequin, somewhat than performing as half of a bigger marketing campaign, Arostegui added.

Construction

China is estimated to have between 20,000 and 30,000 particular operation personnel, reportedly consisting of its most certified and extremely skilled officers and troopers and outfitted with superior weaponry. They’re tasked with three major missions: direct motion, particular reconnaissance and counterterrorism.

An obvious limitation of the PLA’s particular operation forces, as highlighted by the Pentagon’s China Navy Energy Report 2024, is their fragmented command construction and logistics help.

The PLA Floor Power’s 13 group armies, together with the Xinjiang and Tibet navy districts, every preserve a Particular Operations Forces (SOF) brigade. As well as, SOF items are assigned to the navy’s marine corps, the air pressure’s airborne corps, the rocket pressure’s reconnaissance regiment and the Individuals’s Armed Police (PAP).

“There is no such thing as a national-level particular operations command accountable for all SOF actions. PLA SOF doesn’t have natural or devoted infrastructure or help and, subsequently, should depend on standard forces to help their missions,” the report mentioned.

It mentioned the most important overhaul of the PLA since late 2015, whereas emphasising joint operations on the theatre-command degree, didn’t create joint job forces to encourage elevated coordination between the providers.

Chinese language Individuals’s Liberation Military (PLA) naval vessels Sort 052DL guided-missile destroyer Tangshan (D122), proper, and the Sort 903A replenishment ship Taihu(K889), sail in False Bay, outdoors Naval Base Simonstown, Cape City, South Africa, Jan. 6, 2026. EPA-Yonhap

The Chinese language navy additionally lacked a devoted unit for extra strategic-level missions, mentioned Dennis Wilder, a professor at Georgetown College and a former Central Intelligence Company official.

“China doesn’t have the equal of Seal Workforce Six or Delta Power for this sort of strategic insertion,” he mentioned.

The construction confirmed a continued expectation that particular operations items had been designed to help standard forces or their service branches, Arostegui famous.

In earlier PLA writings detailing plans for a joint island touchdown marketing campaign in opposition to Taiwan, particular operations items had been anticipated to “harass” the adversary behind enemy strains to create an operational opening for the principle floor forces.

Since mid-2025, adjustments in state media references to the PLA group army-level SOF brigades have sparked hypothesis about additional structural reforms. Nonetheless, no particulars have been disclosed, and there was nonetheless no proof that SOF personnel now fell underneath a devoted particular operations headquarters, Arostegui mentioned.

Beijing views Taiwan as part of China to be reunited, by pressure if essential. Most nations, together with the U.S., don’t recognise the island as an unbiased state, however Washington is against any try to take the self-governed island by pressure and is dedicated to supplying it with weapons.

Tensions throughout the Taiwan Strait have escalated since 2016 when the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Occasion (DPP) got here to energy on the island and as Beijing has ratcheted up navy strain lately to warn in opposition to separatist strikes in Taiwan.

Taiwan’s nationwide flag is raised throughout an early morning flag-raising ceremony after China’s Peoples Liberation Military mentioned it could conduct live-fire drills in 5 designated maritime and airspace areas round Taiwan, in Taipei, Dec. 30, 2025. AFP-Yonhap

{Hardware} capabilities

The PLA lacks sufficient aviation belongings to hold out long-range insertion of particular forces to conduct strategic-level direct motion or reconnaissance, primarily counting on helicopters to move the SOF items for airborne and air assault missions, in keeping with the Pentagon report.

Concerning a cross-strait VIP seize operation specifically, PLA SOF items had been additionally constrained by restricted helicopter numbers, Arostegui mentioned.

“Whereas SOF personnel prepare with affiliated aviation items, they don’t have their very own natural heliborne elevate, leaving them unable to coach usually with such capabilities,” he mentioned, including that the U.S. helicopter pilots within the Maduro operation had been skilled for such dangerous manoeuvres and missions.

Ni Lexiong, a professor within the political science division at Shanghai College of Political Science and Regulation, mentioned Washington’s digital warfare, which suppressed Venezuela’s radar system, and plane stealth capabilities performed a serious half in securing air superiority – capabilities that Beijing nonetheless wanted to enhance.

“Electromagnetic suppression expertise, particularly digital jamming or digital warfare, and its air pressure’s stealth expertise, coupled with America’s battlefield expertise – these are three essential dimensions [for the strike],” Ni mentioned.

A bomber takes off from an undisclosed location for drills east of Taiwan, on this screenshot from a video launched by the Jap Theatre Command of China’s Individuals’s Liberation Military (PLA), Dec. 29, 2025. Reuters-Yonhap

Expertise

In itemizing main worldwide deployments the PLA particular forces had taken half in – together with earthquake search and rescue in Nepal, warfare evacuation in Yemen, counterpiracy within the Gulf of Aden and border reinforcement after a conflict with India – the Pentagon report concluded that, regardless of unilateral and multilateral coaching, the PLA lacked real-world fight expertise.

Arostegui mentioned that by way of particular person goal searching and seizure missions, some particular forces groups in western China might need expertise in missions in opposition to suspected terrorists or insurgents.

“However these forms of missions can be a lot smaller in scale and restricted within the want for joint integration,” he mentioned.

Though the PLA was not prone to be presently able to finishing up a US-style precision strike operation, they’d different choices to finish a “decapitation” if ordered, though most likely with a lot increased collateral injury, Arostegui added.

“It might nonetheless have an analogous impact however wouldn’t be as advanced.”

The PLA has carried out simulation coaching lately, with state media stating that the navy’s coaching base in Zhurihe in Interior Mongolia options life-size mock-ups of Taiwan’s presidential workplace and parliament.

However no data has been revealed on train situations carried out by the PLA there.

Members of the Individuals’s Liberation Military stand because the strategic strike group shows DF-61 nuclear missiles throughout a navy parade to mark the eightieth anniversary of the tip of World Warfare Two, in Beijing, China, Sept. 3, 2025. Reuters-Yonhap

Intelligence

Analysts identified that the success of the Delta Power operation was paired with an important energy – America’s means to collect intelligence – an influence that the PLA should strengthen to chase its largest rival.

Tune Zhongping, a former Chinese language navy teacher, mentioned PLA particular forces had enough capabilities and had been examined by their anti-terrorism actions. Nonetheless, intelligence can be a key think about whether or not the PLA might obtain a lightning strike or a “focused elimination”.

“The U.S. navy, comparatively, achieved this by the coordinated efforts of varied companies and intelligence departments, acquiring complete first-hand intelligence. Moreover, they secured the help of informants to make sure the precision of their intelligence,” he mentioned.

Wilder additionally highlighted the significance of intelligence within the Caracas operation. He mentioned it succeeded due to “excellent covert intelligence gathering, months of cautious preparation, the usage of offensive cyber and digital warfare”.

“The relevance is that China has a great distance nonetheless to go to achieve the U.S. gold customary,” he mentioned.

Learn the article at SCMP.