The PLAN Coastal Defence Force is a land-based branch of the PLAN in charge of coastal defence, with a strength of around 25,000 personnel. Also known as the coastal defense troops, they serve to defend China's coastal and littoral areas from invasion via amphibious landings or air attacks.
Between the 1950s and 1960s, the Coastal Defense Force was primarily assigned to repel any Kuomintang attempts to infiltrate, invade and harass the Chinese coastline. After the Sino-Soviet split and the abandonment of KMT's plans to recapture the Mainland, the Coastal Defense Force was focused on defending China's coast from a possible Soviet sea-borne invasion throughout the 1960s to 1980s.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, the threat of an amphibious invasion of China has diminished and therefore the branch is often considered to no longer be a vital component of the PLAN, especially as the surface warships of the PLAN continue to improve in terms of anti-ship and air-defence capabilities and the PLAN's power projection begins to extend beyond the first island chain.
Today the primary weapons of the coastal defense troops are the HY-2, YJ-82 and C-602 anti-ship missiles.