Civil-Military Relations in Post-Deng China


Book Description

This book demonstrates that civil-military relations have evolved beyond symbiosis to quasi-institutionalization in post-Deng Xiaoping China. As the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is a Leninist party-army, it is commonly assumed that the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the PLA is symbiotic and institutional boundaries based on a clear functional division of labor are absent between the two. This symbiosis suggests that the primary role of the PLA is in China’s domestic politics; it is to participate in intra-CCP leadership power struggle and in defending the CCP regime against popular rebellions from within Chinese society. By analyzing major changes in the functions of the PLA political commissar system, the extent of the PLA involvement in the power struggle of the CCP leadership, and the circulation of elites across civil-military institutional boundaries, this book offers a new theoretical explanation of civil-military relations in China. It also discusses the implications of the findings for China’s domestic politics and foreign policy.




Civil-Military Change in China Elites, Institutes, and Ideas after the 16th Party Congress


Book Description

In November 2002, the Chinese Communist Party held its 16th Congress and formally initiated a sweeping turnover of senior leaders in both the Party and the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The meeting heralded not merely a new set of personalities in positions of political and military power, but also the emergence of a new generation of leaders. Who are these individuals, and what does their rise mean for the future of China and its military? The group of China specialists who have written this book have applied their research talents, intelligence, and hands-on experience to clarify and explain the most important issues of the day in China. China obviously matters to the United States because of its size, its spectacular patterns of growth, its profound problems linked to rapid growth, and its military intentions. These specialists have avoided the diseases of bias, demagoguery, predispositions, and showmanship, which infect so many of the analyses of China. Rather, they have examined the facts and the trends to explain the divisions and cohesions in the Chinese leadership and their potential significance to the United States and the rest of the world. These annual conferences have a long continuity stretching back to the early 1990s. Hence, there is a common database for the books produced each year. The writers revisit major problems in China's development, particularly in the military sphere. They also examine how Chinese policies have evolved over the years, and how important the United States has been in influencing China's strategy. What, for instance, will the emerging leadership with its factious differences do about Taiwan and North Korea? The conference took place at the Carlisle Barracks in September 19- 21, 2003, and was sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Army War College. The exchanges were frank, the atmosphere was filled with camaraderie and tension.




Following the Leader


Book Description

With unique access to Chinese leaders at all levels of the party and government, best-selling author David M. Lampton tells the story of China’s political elites from their own perspectives. Based on over five hundred interviews, Following the Leader offers a rare glimpse into how the attitudes and ideas of those at the top have evolved over the past four decades. Here China’s rulers explain their strategies and ideas for moving the nation forward, share their reflections on matters of leadership and policy, and discuss the challenges that keep them awake at night. As the Chinese Communist Party installs its new president, Xi Jinping, for a presumably ten-year term, questions abound. How will the country move forward as its explosive rate of economic growth begins to slow? How does it plan to deal with domestic and international calls for political reform and to cope with an aging population, not to mention an increasingly fragmented bureaucracy and society? In this insightful book we learn how China’s leaders see the nation’s political future, as well as about its global strategic influence.




Seeking Truth from Facts


Book Description

"A series of retrospective papers given at a conference held in Washington, DC, 8-11 July 1999, on Chinese civil-military relations, force structure, doctrine, capabilities, and the state of the field" -- Pref.




China's Use of Military Force


Book Description

In this unique study of China s militarism, Andrew Scobell examines the use of military force abroad - as in Korea (1950), Vietnam (1979), and the Taiwan Strait (1995 1996) - and domestically, as during the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and in the 1989 military crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Debunking the view that China has become increasingly belligerent in recent years because of the growing influence of soldiers, Scobell concludes that China s strategic culture has remained unchanged for decades. Nevertheless, the author uncovers the existence of a Cult of Defense in Chinese strategic culture. The author warns that this Cult of Defense disposes Chinese leaders to rationalize all military deployment as defensive, while changes in the People s Liberation Army s doctrine and capabilities over the past two decades suggest that China s twenty-first century leaders may use military force more readily than their predecessors.







Active Defense


Book Description

What changes in China's modern military policy reveal about military organizations and strategySince the 1949 Communist Revolution, China has devised nine different military strategies, which the People's Liberation Army (PLA) calls "strategic guidelines." What accounts for these numerous changes? Active Defense offers the first systematic look at China's military strategy from the mid-twentieth century to today. Exploring the range and intensity of threats that China has faced, M. Taylor Fravel illuminates the nation's past and present military goals and how China sought to achieve them, and offers a rich set of cases for deepening the study of change in military organizations.Drawing from diverse Chinese-language sources, including memoirs of leading generals, military histories, and document collections that have become available only in the last two decades, Fravel shows why transformations in military strategy were pursued at certain times and not others. He focuses on the military strategies adopted in 1956, 1980, and 1993-when the PLA was attempting to wage war in a new kind of way-to show that China has pursued major change in its strategic guidelines when there has been a significant shift in the conduct of warfare in the international system and when China's Communist Party has been united.Delving into the security threats China has faced over the last seven decades, Active Defense offers a detailed investigation into how and why states alter their defense policies.




Chinese Military Reform in the Age of Xi Jinping: Drivers, Challenges, and Implications


Book Description

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has embarked on its most wide-ranging and ambitious restructuring since 1949, including major changes to most of its key organizations. The restructuring reflects the desire to strengthen PLA joint operation capabilities- on land, sea, in the air, and in the space and cyber domains. The reforms could result in a more adept joint warfighting force, though the PLA will continue to face a number of key hurdles to effective joint operations, Several potential actions would indicate that the PLA is overcoming obstacles to a stronger joint operations capability. The reforms are also intended to increase Chairman Xi Jinping's control over the PLA and to reinvigorate Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organs within the military. Xi Jinping's ability to push through reforms indicates that he has more authority over the PLA than his recent predecessors. The restructuring could create new opportunities for U.S.-China military contacts.




China's Military Transformation


Book Description

China's military transformation is one of the major geo-strategic developments of the 21st Century. Billions of dollars are being spent modernizing The People's Liberation Army (PLA) as China seeks to upgrade and expand its military capabilities to rival the US. In this cutting-edge analysis, You Ji, a leading expert on China's military affairs, explores the changes taking places within the PLA today, covering its ground, aerospace and maritime forces, its ability to meet asymmetric threats, and the growing role played by the People's Armed Police in quelling dissent in China. He shows how these transformations in personnel, technology and strategic goals are slowly driving a wedge between China's two most powerful institutions. Until recently, relations between the CCP and PLA were harmonious, but as the PLA becomes increasingly professionalized and autonomous so its unconditional loyalty to the ruling Party may weaken. The changing relationship between the CCP and PLA, he argues, is likely to have profound implications for China's own political development and the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region. Comprehensive and incisive, this timely book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the nature and consequences of China's military rise.




Chinese Civil-Military Relations in the Post-Deng Era: Implications for Crisis Management and Naval Modernization


Book Description

This study addresses two analytical questions: What has changed in Chinese civil-military relations during the post-Deng Xiaoping era? What are the implications of this change for China's crisis management and its naval modernization? Addressing these questions is important for three major reasons. First, because the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is a party army, it is commonly assumed that its primary function is domestic politics -- that is, to participate in party leadership factional politics and to defend the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against political opposition from Chinese society. For the past twenty years, however, the PLA has not been employed by such party leaders as Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao against political opposition from either the CCP or Chinese society. The PLA's ground force, which is manpower-intensive and therefore the most appropriate service for domestic politics, has been continuously downsized. Technology and capital-intensive services that are appropriate for force projection to the margins of China and beyond and for strategic deterrence but are inappropriate for domestic politics -- such as the PLA Navy (PLAN), the PLA Air Force (PLAAF), and the Second Artillery (the strategic missile force) -- have been more privileged in China's military modernization drive. This study, by examining change in Chinese civil-military relations, undertakes to resolve this analytical puzzle. Second, China's civil-military interagency coordination in crisis management during the post-Deng era has remained an area of speculation, for lack of both information and careful analysis. By analyzing change in Chinese civil-military relations, this study aims to shed some light on this analytical puzzle as well. Finally, the PLAN was previously marginalized within the PLA ... By exploring change in Chinese civil-military relations, this study also attempts to explain why during the post-Deng era the PLAN has become more important in China's military policy.