Chinese People's Liberation Army Research Articles

The Significance of the Chinese People's Liberation Army White Paper

In December 2004 the People's Liberation Army issued its status report, the White Paper, summarising its view of the global configuration of forces and projecting its response. The operating assumptions are: (1) while the international situation is stable, there are factors present of instability, uncertainty and insecurity, which are increasing, at the same time that hegemonism and unilateralism are gaining; (2) the tendency towards multi-polarisation is deepening; (3) new changes are altering the existing balance of power; (4) while the developing world is increasing global democratisation with a more vocal say, the gap between the North and the South is ever widening; (5) the world wide revolution in Military Affairs requires both new technology and new doctrines; (6) localised wars of a geopolitical, ethnic and religious nature are a constant threat; (7) any attempt by Taiwan to separate will be crushed; and (8) non-traditional threats are on the increase. To properly position the White Paper in perspective, it is essential to examine the 1999 study by two senior PLA Colonels, Unrestricted Warfare, which was characterised by the US as the doctrine of a technologically weaker China as it confronts the superior US power. A careful examination of this study reveals a thoroughly thought-out evaluation of both US and Chinese strengths and weaknesses in technology, strategy and doctrine. There is little doubt that the wake-up call for the PLA was triggered by the Gulf War—Operation Desert Storm. China's response, it is argued, is multiple—ranging from altering force levels to increasing its educational/technical levels; developing a seamless strategy for a transition from a peacetime to a wartime economy; seeking a leapfrog strategy in military technology; not falling into the trap of seeking superiority in all areas of military technology; and constructing and reinforcing an alliance structure of both multilateral institutional nature as well as on the bilateral level.

Beyond Tiananmen: the politics of U.S.-China relations, 1989-2000

It has been thirteen years since soldiers of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) raced into the center of Beijing, ordered to recover at any cost the city's most important landmark, Tiananmen Square, from student demonstrators. The U.S. and other Western countries recoiled in disgust after the horrific incident, and the relationship between the U.S. and China went from amity and strategic cooperation to hostility, distrust, and misunderstanding. Time has healed many of the wounds from those terrible days of June 1989, and bilateral strains have been eased in light of the countries' joint opposition to international terrorism. Yet China and U.S. remain locked in opposition, as strategic thinkers and military planners on both sides plot future conflict scenarios with the other side as principal enemy. Polls indicate that most Americans consider China an unfriendly country, and anti-American sentiment is growing in China. According to Robert Suettinger, the calamity in Tiananmen Square marked a critical turning point in U.S.-China affairs. In Beyond Tiananmen , Suettinger traces the turbulent bilateral relationship since that time, with a particular focus on the internal political factors that shaped it. Through a series of candid anecdotes and observations, Suettinger sheds light on the complex and confused decision-making process that affected relations between the U.S. and China between 1989 and the end of the Clinton presidency in 2000. By illuminating the way domestic political ideas, beliefs, and prejudices affect foreign policymaking, Suettinger reveals policy decisions as outcomes of complex processes, rather than the results of grand strategic trends. He also refutes the view that strategic confrontation between the superpowers is inevitable. Suettinger sees considerable opportunity for cooperation and improvement in what is likely to be the single most important bilateral relationship of the twenty-first century. He cautions, however, that routine misperceptions of goals and policies between the two countries --unfortunate legacies of Tiananmen --could lead to an increasing level of hostility, with tragic consequences.

The People's Liberation Army as Organization, Reference Volume v1.0 (conference proceedings). Edited by James C. Mulvenon and Andrew N. D. Yang. [Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2002. xx+635 pp. $45.00. ISBN 0-8330-3303-4.

This is an essential reference volume for scholars, students and public officials interested in the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). It is the first highly detailed examination of the Chinese military's organizational structure and takes full advantage of the vast amount of Chinese language material that has recently become available on the subject.

China and the People's Liberation Army: Great Power or Struggling Developing State?

Introduction: Developing World Security Priorities and the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) The Goal: Overhauling China's Military Strategy The Reality: Implementation and Force Structure The Military-Industrial Complex and the Ephemeral Hunt for Profits Trends in Chinese Defense Spending and the Illusive Goal of Modernization Conclusion: China and the Balance of Power in the Asia-Pacific Region

Soldiers of Fortune: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Military-Business Complex, 1978-1998

In 1978, faced with the pressure to modernize and a declining budget, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) reluctantly agreed to join China's economic reform drive, expanding its internal economy to market-oriented civilian production. This work examines PLA's role in the economy up to 1998.

China and the RMA

Abstract This article explores the possibility of a revolution in military affairs (RMA) in the Chinese People's Liberation Army. After evaluating the social, economic, and technological foundation for an RMA in China, the authors then outline the theoretical underpinnings of the RMA and its relation to military innovation. Using this analysis as a template, the article then assesses the current status of the RMA in the PLA, paying particular attention to C4I modernization, as well as preparations for the implementation of the RMA at the unit level, including network-based war-gaming, IW training, IW exercises, and acquisition of informationized equipment. The authors conclude that the PLA has already initiated an RMA, whether the Chinese leadership realizes it or not. Further, the rapid informationization of Chinese society and the dual-use nature of the global information economy have permitted the Chinese military to make important strides. At the same time, however, Chinas RMA has only begun to change...

Japanese chemical weapons in China

On 27 September, Japanese government officials and members of the Chinese People's Liberation Army completed an unprecedented two-week operation to unearth and remove chemical weapon shells abandoned in China by the Japanese military in the closing stages of the Second World War. The exercise was significant not only as the first instance of Japanese officials engaging in such clearance activities, but also because of the closeness of the cooperation between the Chinese and Japanese governments.

Regularization and the Chinese People's Liberation Army: An Assessment of Change

Over the past 20 years, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been creating and expanding a set of legal norms and regulations designed to improve the administration, supervision, and overall quality of the Chinese armed forces. The pace of change has accelerated recently with the issuing of new and revised combat regulations for the PLA in 1999 and the transfer of most military enterprises to civilian control. Accordingly, an assessment of the regularization achieved to date can provide an important framework for the ongoing debate about the state of professionalization within the PLA and the army's role within the Chinese political system. This article primarily will focus on the attempts to develop and implement a comprehensive set of norms and legal code to standardize such basic elements of the military as doctrine, training, military administration, operational codes, and norms and standards of military discipline necessary to carry out all of the above.1

Regularization and the Chinese People's Liberation Army: An Assessment of Change

Regularization and the Chinese People's Liberation Army: An Assessment of Change

China's military in transition

China's Military in Transition is the most comprehensive study of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) ever published. Drawing upon a broad range of documentary sources and interviews, many of the world's leading specialists on the Chinese military provide in-depth and expert analyses of China's military modernization programme. This unprecedented volume covers many aspects of the PLA on the eve of the twenty-first century: party-army relations and the role of the PLA in domestic Chinese politics; the changing officer corps; the paramilitary People's Armed Police; troop reorganizations and the demobilization programme; the national security and defence policy decision-making processes; the military-industrial complex and defence industrial conversion; defence finance, budget, and training; weapons procurement; nuclear force modernization; threat perceptions; power projection capabilities; and the military balance in the Taiwan Strait.

Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie 13 (1995) (review)

© 1998 by University ofHawai'i Press Reviews 89 commended for providing both, in addition to a handy table showing basic statistics on the countries ofthe East Asia-Pacific region. Overall, I recommend this book as a class guide—even for graduate seminars on East Asian political security issues. Even though none ofthe chapters, taken alone, begins to do justice to its subject, virtually all ofthe chapters are excellent starting points, particularly for students who have no background at all in a particular area or subject. The reading lists provide the next step. Harlan W. Jencks University ofCalifornia at Berkeley Harlan W. Jencks is a research associate at UC Berkeley, and an analyst at the UCs Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He specializes in EastAsian security affairs , with an emphasis on the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Michel Cartier, Danielle Elisseeff, and Jacqueline Nivard, editors. Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie 13 (1995). Paris: Éditions de l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1995. xxxii, 572 pp. Fr 250 ($42.00), issn 0080-2484. The Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie (Bibliographie Review ofSinology), an indispensable reference tool for two generations, began publication in 1955. The Ancienne série (Old Series) consists ofN° 1 (i955)-N° 15 (1970); publication ceased between 1971 and 1982; and the Nouvelle série (New Series) consists ofN° 1 (1983)N ° 14 (1996) (the most recent volume has just appeared but is not reviewed here). The 1995 volume includes entries on 380 books and 300 articles selected from 121 periodicals, originally in Chinese, Japanese, or Western (including Eastern European ) languages. The entries themselves, written in either French or English (this volume is typical ofthe series in general, about three French entries to one in English ), run from about a quarter ofa page to a page and a quarter in length and tend to be descriptive rather than critical—though they certainly indicate, ifappropriate , significant deficiencies or virtues. Each volume contains two indexes: one to authors ofworks and one to subjects and proper names mentioned in the entries. Chinese characters are not included in the indexes but do appear in the entries—for names ofChinese and Japanese authors ofworks reviewed, tides of books and articles, and significant terms and proper nouns that appear in the en- 90 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. ?, Spring 1998 tries. Romanization is in pinyin (the Old Series used the Wade-Giles system). A list of contributors (ninety-three different scholars) appears on pp. xxvii-xxix. The Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie cannot, of course, review every work that appears in a given year, but it does attempt to treat most significant works and illustrate current trends in all major fields of Chinese studies. A survey of the contents of the 1995 volume reveals the following categories: bibliography (new review publications, bulletins and newsletters, bibliographies, collections ofdocuments , sources and archives, reference works, history of sinology, and proceedings of colloquia and conferences); history and the social sciences (historiography , history, economics, institutions, sociology, diaspora, border peoples/ relations, and geography); art and archaeology (interdisciplinary approaches, methodology, reports of archaeological finds, bronzes, jade, Buddhist art, catalogs of collections and exhibitions, numismatics, architecture, gardens, minor arts, music, painting, and calligraphy); linguistics (script, lexicography, history ofthe Chinese language, phonetics, grammar, dialects, and comparative linguistics); literature (fiction, poetry, drama and theater, women's literature, and translations); philosophy and religion (Confucianism/Neo-Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, and popular religions); and history of science (technology/technological procedures, agronomy, astronomy and mathematics, and medicine). The entries in each category begin with general works and, if appropriate, follow the historical chronology of the subjects treated. Beginning with 1995, each volume of the Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie also contains a number of bibliographical surveys that explore new topics and introduce books and articles that were previously omitted. The 1995 volume has eight such surveys, all in French: (1) Christine Nguyen Tri, "La vogue des manuels d'enseignement élémentaire traditionnels en RPC: Naissance d'une recherche, retour de la morale confucéenne ou manipulation politique?" (Current vogue for traditional elementary educational textbooks in the People's Republic of China: Birth of new research, return of Confucian morality, or political manipulation?), follows the section on bibliography; (2) Michel Cartier, "Le...

Lyndon B. Johnson and the China Enigma

Among the many reasons publicly given for America's involvement in Vietnam was the conviction that the Vietnamese communists were the proxies of the People's Republic of China. On many occasions members of the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson claimed that the North Vietnamese could not have infiltrated south and undermined its ally in the Republic of (South) Vietnam without the active connivance and support of the Beijing government. American policy-makers repeatedly insisted that if they failed to meet the challenge of China's presumed claim for pre-eminence in South-east Asia there would be a substantial enlargement of Chinese influence involving a dangerous change in the balance of power. Johnson put it bluntly: 'We face an ambitious and aggressive China, but we have the will and the strength to help our Asian friends resist that ambition.'1 Notwithstanding the frequent references made to China's backing of communist forces in Vietnam, there were some doubts within Washington about the nature of China's power and the real extent of its involvement in socalled wars of national liberation. There were several reasons for this understated uncertainty. In the first place it was difficult to reconcile Beijing's assertive and sometimes unequivocal declarations of support for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam with its equally confident pronouncements that the war could be won without the direct involvement of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The confusion was compounded by the recognition of policy-makers that they could better justify America's massive war effort if they could identify a clear threat to American security. Leading Vietnam advisers, such as Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, McGeorge Bundy, National Security Adviser, and Robert MacNamara, Secretary of Defence, were able to clarify the broader international context by convincing each other that Beijing was behind Hanoi's extraordinary ability to keep up the relentless flow of guerrilla forces.2 For example, on 7 November 1965, Robert McNamara

China's Military in Transition: Politics, Professionalism, Procurement and Power Projection

International attention is increasingly focusing on the modernization of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). Discussions about the Chinese military have moved from intelligence circles and esoteric defence journals into the global media spotlight. Chinese moves in Burma and the South China Sea, continued nuclear testing, arms purchases and, exports, lack of budgetary transparency, increasing influence in elite politics and the political succession to Deng Xiaoping, and coercive pressure against Taiwan have all drawn attention to the PLA and have contributed to growing concerns about a muscular and assertive China.

Korea, China, and the United States: A Look Back

The triumph of the Chinese revolution in 1949 secured the Manchurian rear of Kim II Sung's Democratic People's Republic and brought it the bonanza of scores of thousands of battle-experienced troops. Koreans whom Kim had sent to fight in the Chinese People's Liberation Army against the Kuomintang came home, bringing much equipment, and were integrated into the new northern army. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Public Relations Education in the People's Republic of China

Public was introduced into China after political and economic changes in the late 1970s paved the way for this western concept and profession.(1) Since then, as an occupation has rapidly spread. Chinese officials claim that about 100,000 practitioners now work in almost all sectors of society. (Since the definition of remains vague, and there is no licensing of practitioners, estimates of the number of workers in the field are tentative.) Universities are offering curricula, and firms and agencies--some foreign--have opened.(2)Trained personnel are initially bound to be in short supply in any new field. The structure, curricula, and problems of education and professional training greatly affect the quality and stature of an emerging profession. The Chinese welcome assistance from western educators and professionals in their efforts to develop and implement educational and training programs.How can westerners work with Chinese educators and officials? What are the implications of cultural and class differences? This paper addresses these questions, and offers some implications for education as it exists both in the West and in developing countries.Historical precedentsAlthough the term public relations is relatively new in China, the practice can be traced over more than 2,000 years of Chinese history, encompassing 13 dynasties and the People's Republic of China. The rise and fall of these dynasties has illustrated the importance of recognizing the harmony concept--the establishment and maintenance of a harmonious relationship between the ruler and the subjects on whom his success or failure depended. Emperors viewed their subjects as water which could carry the imperial boat but also turn it over. Thus, all rulers emphasized relationship building, hence, relations.For instance, an emperor went to the Temple of on New Year's eve to report to Heaven how he exercised his power benevolently and helped his subjects during the year. News about the report was sent to the people to gain their support and understanding.The former leader of the Communist Party, Mao Zedong, disciplined his army by the famous Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The three main rules are: (a) obey orders in all your actions; (b) don't take a single needle or piece of thread from the masses; and (c) turn in everything captured. The eight points are: (a) speak politely; (b) pay fairly for what you buy; (c) return everything you borrow; (d) pay for everything you damage; (e) don't hit or swear at people; (f) don't damage crops; (g) don't take liberties with women; and (h) don't ill-treat captives.(3) These rigid rules were made known to every household, which in turn, helped the army and party establish a very distinguished and positive image.Confucianism, China's traditional philosophy and guiding regulatory system for social affairs, emphasizes li--adherence to propriety and respect for social order-which requires all people to follow accepted rituals in relating to others. This stratifies society into a hierarchy of power. To reduce the conflicts created by this social estate system, Confucius calls for harmony, which is a way to smooth relationships.Evolution of a new fieldDespite the long history of its practice, is still new as an occupation in China. Confusion about the nature, goals, roles, and functions of has been observed since its introduction in the early 1980s. At first, people tended to define as a publicity function. Now, more people, especially managers, think of as a management-counseling function.(4)The structure of practice and education in China has evolved through several stages, resulting in an educational system with many levels of training. …

Chinese Military Strategy Revised: Local and Limited War

In 1985, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), as all three armed services are collectively known, was required to redirect its military strategy from a focus on general war with the USSR to the more probable source of military conflict: small-scale and potentially intense wars around China's periphery. New enemies did not emerge; instead, the kinds of conflicts that could arise required a revised defense policy and military strategy. These changes, although important in themselves, left the PLA even more conscious of its technological obsolescence. Developing concepts of military operations in which speed and lethality were to be the principal characteristics of combat, rather than defensive operations based upon attrition warfare and a society mobilized for war, served only to highlight the PLA's technological weaknesses. As in all the years since the beginning of Chinese defense modernization in the late 1970s, these technological weaknesses led the armed forces to demand swifter modernization of their arms and equipment.

Changing Concepts of Doctrine, Strategy and Operations in the Chinese People's Liberation Army 1978–87

Introduction Since the late 1970s, when the current programmes seeking to modernize China's defence establishment began, issues of military doctrine, strategy and operations have remained at the forefront of China's quest for a defence capacity capable of being ranked among the world's great powers. As the Chinese leadership contemplated defence modernization, they could not but recognize the Janus-like quality of their armed forces. One face looked back on the people's war traditions that served them so well and for so long, while the other faced the complexities of conventional and strategic nuclear warfare and deterrence in the latter part of the 20th century.

A Reminiscence of the Chinese People's Volunteers in the Korean War

On the night 13/14th October 1950 soldiers of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) crossed the Yalu river from north-east China into Korea. In the 10 weeks of operations that followed, these men, with others crowding in behind them, threw back the powerful divisions of the United Nations Command, ejecting them from the territory of North Korea and, further, seemed capable of driving them from the whole Korean peninsular. No doubt the government in Beijing believed for a time that its soldiers were once more about to deliver an immense political prize to Party and state. They were wrong. If the intervention of the PLA changed the course of the Korean war initially much as Mao Zedong intended, it changed also the outlook of the PLA, led to factionalism among the military leadership, which persists and, arguably, accelerated the subsequent rift between China and the Soviet Union.

The Chinese Military System: An Organizational Study of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. 2nd rev. ed. By Harvey W. Nelsen. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press (Westview Special Studies on China and East Asia), 1981. 238 pp. $32.

The Chinese Military System: An Organizational Study of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. 2nd rev. ed. By Harvey W. Nelsen. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press (Westview Special Studies on China and East Asia), 1981. 238 pp. $32. - Volume 42 Issue 1

Tibet—The Last Frontier

Abstract From 2 to 14 June 1980 the authors participated in an excursion by jeepacross Tibet, following the road from Lhosa via Gyangze, Xigaze, Tingri, and Nyalam to Zham on the Nepal border. The excursion was organized by the Academia Sinica, with direct support by Vice-Chairman and Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping and Vice-Premier Feng Yi, and relied on the excellent logistic support of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. This report gives an account of impressions, including those of local and regional meteorological and climatological problems.