At 80 years young, PLA still going
strong By Jing-dong Yuan
MONTEREY, California - Last week marked
the 80th birthday of the People's Liberation Army
(PLA), China's 2.3-million-strong armed forces.
From a peasant army when it was established, it
has experienced victories and weathered setbacks
to become an increasingly professional military
today.
The week-long ceremonies were
attended by all the top Chinese leaders - current
and retired - including the joint appearances by
President Hu Jintao and former president Jiang
Zemin in the Great
Hall
of the People. The celebrations, accompanied by
exhibits of PLA achievements over the past eight
decades, emphasized the essential role and the
undisputable leadership of the Chinese Communist
Party over the military. But there is more that
deserves close attention and scrutiny.
The
Chinese military is undergoing five major
transformations: doctrine and military planning,
organization and force structure, equipment
procurement, training and operations, and foreign
military relations. When and to what extent the
PLA will become a world-class military will depend
how successful these transformations are.
The PLA's doctrine has undergone drastic
changes over the past 20 years. Gone are the days
when the military was guided by Mao Zedong's
romantic "People's War" dogma. As China's 2006
Defense White Paper makes clear, the doctrine
today is active defense with the ability to fight
and win local wars under high-tech conditions.
This doctrine sets the target of building
the PLA by mid-century into a modern,
information-age military force, with a strong
emphasis on the importance of maintaining an
effective and reliable strategic force composed of
both nuclear and conventional weapons
capabilities.
The PLA's organization and
force structure have also gone through major
transformation. From an infantry-heavy and
conscript-based military of the 1980s, the PLA has
significantly reduced its total manpower,
increased the proportion of non-commissioned
officers, and formed combined army groups with
more specialized units. The educational level of
the officer corps has also been elevated.
The most noticeable transformation has
taken place in the area of equipment, where the
PLA has acquired major new weapons systems since
the early 1990s. These include fourth-generation
Russian fighter aircraft and transporters such as
Su-27, Su-30, MiG-29 and Il-76, Sovremenny-class
destroyers and Kilo-class diesel submarines, and
modern air-defense systems. China recently
inducted its domestically produced new fleet of
fighter aircraft (J-10) and Shang-class 092
nuclear-powered attack submarines.
China
is also undergoing important modernization in its
conventional and nuclear ballistic-missile forces,
and new-generation nuclear-powered
ballistic-missile submarines. The introduction and
deployment of these new weapons systems have
helped close the equipment gap in selected areas
between the PLA and the world's most advanced
militaries and strengthened China's aerial and
maritime capabilities in its vicinity. They also
help ensure credibility and effectiveness of the
country's limited counter-coercion and
counter-strike nuclear deterrence.
Military training and operations are
becoming more realistic, regular, and
contingency-based, a major departure from the past
practice of exercises whose outcomes were
predetermined to ensure that the "Red" always won.
There is also growing emphasis on the concept of
jointness that combines different services and
branches in command, planning, operation, and
logistic coordination.
Finally, the PLA
has been more receptive to and active in
interactions with its foreign counterparts. It has
established military-to-military relations with
more than a hundred countries whereby regular
visits between high-ranking military officers,
educational exchanges, port visits, and joint
military exercises are taking place in increasing
numbers. China has also contributed to and
participated in United Nations peacekeeping
operations, with more than 7,500 troops in 17
missions since 1990.
The PLA is continuing
to transform itself into a modern fighting force.
But it also faces key challenges ahead. These
include its ability to adapt and adopt changes as
necessitated by the revolution in military
affairs; to integrate new weapons systems to
elevate its overall combat capabilities; and to
implement reforms in organization, training and
personnel. Significant mission-capabilities gaps
exist, and many of the military reforms remain
aspirations. Finally, civil-military relations and
party-army symbiosis could also hamper development
of professionalism in the Chinese military.
Perhaps the most daunting challenge of all
is how the PLA can successfully carry out its
missions while at the same time reassuring the
rest of the region and the world that its
modernization will not be a threat. From Beijing's
perspective, explanation and promotion of its new
security concept, active participation in
multilateral security institutions, and military
diplomacy could help alleviate some of the
concerns over China's military buildup.
The regular publications of the country's
defense white papers, participation in the annual
International Institute for Strategic Studies
Shangri-La Dialogue (Asia Security Summit), and
the PLA's engagement with the US military reflect
specific Chinese efforts to demonstrate its
peaceful and non-threatening intentions and
goodwill.
But the extent and consequences
of China's military modernization can also be
assessed through careful evaluations of its
strategic priorities and near-term goals; the
PLA's current force structure and order of battle;
its principal current and emerging missions and
existing deficiencies; China's domestic defense
industrial base and its ability to deliver the
necessary equipment; and China's available foreign
arms suppliers and the costs of weapons imports.
These may lead to a better understanding of the
progress, problems, and prospects of the PLA at
80.
Dr Jing-dong Yuan is
director of education program at the James Martin
Center for non-proliferation studies and an
associate professor of international policy
studies at the Monterey Institute of International
Studies in California.
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