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List of wars involving the People's Republic of China

Wikimedia list article

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ6645019 ↗
Source-derived summary

This is a list of wars involving the People's Republic of China (PRC). The PRC last fought a war in 1979 (the Sino-Vietnamese War) and has fought only in relatively minor engagements since.

Wars involving the People's Republic of China

PRC military victory

Indecisive or unclear outcome

Ongoing Conflict / Civil War or internal conflict

PRC military defeat

Other conflicts

Second Taiwan Strait Crisis (1958)

Battle of the Paracel Islands (1974)

Johnson South Reef Skirmish (1988)

Third Taiwan Strait Crisis (1995)

Scarborough Shoal standoff (2012)

2020–2021 China–India skirmishes

2022 Yangtse clash

Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis

UN peacekeeping and anti-piracy missions

United Nations Mission in Liberia

United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

United Nations–African Union Mission in Darfur

Mali War - United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali

Anti-piracy measures in Somalia

See also

List of wars and battles involving China

Outline of the Chinese Civil War

Outline of the military history of the People's Republic of China

Foreign interventions by China

References

Notes

Citations

Further reading

Lea, David; Boland-Crewe, Tara (2002). The Territories of the People's Republic of China. London: Europa Publications. ISBN 978-1-85743-149-0.

McKnight, Brian E.; Zürcher, Erik. "China". Encyclopædia Britannica.

"Wars that People's Republic of China fought".

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “List of wars involving the People's Republic of China” as wikimedia list article. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around List, wars and involving.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1979, 1958, 1974, 1988—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with List, wars and involving providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “List of wars involving the People's Republic of China”, the useful work is to connect “wikimedia list article” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6645019. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1979, 1958, 1974 and 1988.

Critical limits

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  2. Expand the search: follow List of wars involving the People's Republic of China primary sources, List of wars involving the People's Republic of China archive and List research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “List of wars involving the People's Republic of China” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.