People's Liberation Army Rocket Force

The People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF; Chinese: 中国人民解放军火箭军; pinyin: Zhōngguó Rénmín Jiěfàngjūn Huǒjiàn Jūn), formerly the Second Artillery Corps (Chinese: 第二炮兵), is the strategic and tactical missile force of the People's Republic of China. The PLARF is the 4th branch of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and controls China's arsenal of land-based ballistic, hypersonic, cruise missiles—both nuclear and conventional. The armed service branch was established on 1 July 1966 and made its first public appearance on 1 October 1984. The headquarters for operations is located at Qinghe, Beijing. The PLARF is under the direct command of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Military Commission (CMC).

The PLARF comprises approximately 120,000 personnel and six ballistic missile "bases" (units at roughly corps or army group level). The six bases are independently deployed in the five Theaters throughout China.

The name was changed from the PLA Second Artillery Corps to the PLA Rocket Force on 1 January 2016. Despite claims by some, there appears to be no evidence to suggest that the new generation of Chinese ballistic-missile submarines will come under PLARF control.

China has the largest land-based missile arsenal in the world. According to Pentagon estimates, this includes 1,200 conventionally armed short-range ballistic missiles, 200 to 300 conventional medium-range ballistic missiles and an unknown number of conventional intermediate-range ballistic missiles, hundreds of hypersonic missiles and glide vehicles, as well as 200-300 ground-launched cruise missiles. Many of these are extremely accurate, which would allow them to destroy targets even without nuclear warheads. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Federation of American Scientists estimated in 2023 that China has a stockpile of approximately 500 nuclear warheads.