SINOGRAPH PLA makes moves on political
frontline By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - It was more than many in Asia
and the Pacific were hoping to see, but was also
less than in the past - and it possibly shows a
trend for the future. China on March 4 announced
it would boost military spending by 11.2% in 2012,
describing its first defense budget since United
States President Barack Obama promoted a policy of
bolstering the American presence in the region, in
non-hostile terms.
The new official budget
for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) will be
670.3 billion yuan (US$110 billion), after a 12.7%
increase last year and a near-unbroken string of
double-digit rises reaching back two decades. In
2010, the PLA announced an increase of only 7.5%.
Unofficial estimates reckon the increases to be
much higher. But the official newspaper for the
foreign audience, China
Daily, took the pains to
show an overall decrease of the Chinese military
spending.
The latest official budget
shrinks the increase by 1.5% compared to last
year, while the complex calculations of the China
Daily show a decrease, and in so doing aim at
achieving two goals: to signal to Asia-Pacific
countries, which are growing concerned about
China's military might, that PLA expenditures
could be drastically reduced in the future; and at
the same time, since the increase is still quite
significant, to pays political dues to the
military establishment during the year of
leadership succession from Hu Jintao to Xi
Jinping.
The
PLA represents the single largest political asset
in the party. Deng Xiaoping for years had no major
role in the government or the Chinese Communist
Party, but was chairman of the military
commission. After him, both Jiang Zemin and Hu
Jintao wore three major hats together; head of
state, general secretary of the party, and
chairman of the military commission.
In
2002, Jiang gave up the first two posts, but
retained for two more years the military
commission leadership, proof that he was still the
paramount leader in China. In October, at the 18th
Party Congress, China should have its second
peaceful transition of power with the one from Hu
to Xi, which follows that of Jiang to Hu. In this
transition, when many things have yet to be
decided, nobody can afford to antagonize the PLA.
And the PLA wants money for its weapons and its
people, as money, besides being money, is power in
the party and in China.
This, in a way,
goes beyond the normal military logic of many
countries, where militaries seek more money for
their aggrandizement. It is part of the current
logic of power in China. Jiang in the 1990s was
the first party chief who had no combat experience
and no great familiarity with the military. Before
him, Deng drastically reduced the military budget
to open up resources to grow the civilian economy,
and in the early 1980s, he cut down PLA forces by
one third.
In return for this, Deng
allowed the military to seek business on its own,
start companies, make money, be capitalist, and de
facto not be interested in military affairs.
However, with the crackdown on the
Tiananmen movement, the military were brought back
to the political frontline. They were asked to
move against the students and take sides in the
power struggle at the top, which brought about the
political demise of former party chief Zhao
Ziyang. At the 14th Party Congress in 1992, the
powerful military faction headed by Yang Shangkun
was toppled, and Deng conferred all the power on
Jiang, while putting general Liu Huaqing, then
formerly retired, in the Standing Committee of the
Politburo. Liu was to back Jiang in his hold of
power, which at the beginning was not too firm.
Around the 15th Party Congress, in 1997,
another major break took place between the army
and the party. Two elements brought this split
about. The first was the PLA involvement in a
major smuggling scandal in Xiamen, and the other
was the reform of the state-owned enterprises
(SOE). The Xiamen scandal occurred when China was
negotiating its entry into the World Trade
Organization (WTO).
The official line was
of resistance, but then a group of Chinese
scholars produced a study proving that if China
were to cut back on smuggling, it could achieve
the tariff targets to get into the WTO, and it
would actually increase its total income from
customs. In other words, smuggling in China,
conducted mainly with the support of the army, was
costing the government more than the tariff cuts
requested by the United States.
Moreover,
for China's economy to become more efficient,
China needed to reform its SOEs, making them fully
commercial and separate from their old ministries.
In this way, in a few years, the military had to
shed all its companies and drastically reform its
internal procurement system.
It meant that
the military stopped making money for itself, had
to officially cease being a capitalist enterprise,
and thus had to get money from the state. As a
further sign of the demilitarization of politics,
there has been no soldier on the Standing
Committee of the Politburo since the 15th Party
Congress. In return, the military got the green
light to increase its budget and proceed with a
long-delayed program of modernization.
Over a decade later, the PLA has become
the second-largest military in the world, in line
with its economic power. But this stronger
military is not increasing China’s international
standing; it is conversely undermining China's
position in the region and the world as it
multiplies fears of a "yellow peril" invading the
world with its products and soldiers.
Not
only does China not affirm its power through the
military (for a wide number of reasons), but China
may also find it more difficult to conduct simple
business, such as mergers and acquisitions,
because of the military shadow. Every M&A
conducted because of a normal interest becomes
suspicious: is it an act of military invasion? Is
it part of a convoluted Chinese plot to conquer
the world?
If this were so, now would be
the time for the asymmetric strategy expounded by
Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui in their 1999 book
War Beyond Limits (Chao Xian Zhan).
That is, to acquire a greater military voice and
greater political credibility in the world, China
should conceive a complex strategy - a simple
vertical military increase is just
counterproductive. It only multiplies fears and
reactions that start with the military but cover
all kinds of Chinese activities at home and
abroad: any purchase of a mine or factory abroad
and any crackdown on turmoil could become evidence
of China's conquering spirit.
Moreover,
competition with the United States in space [1]
and on Internet security is heating up. In these
two fields, crucial for future security (through
the ''conquest'' of the Internet or space I can
make your weapons follow my commands, or I can
block all your weapons' systems), China is not
lagging far behind the US, so Beijing should have
no real fear of being attacked and easily beaten
by America.
This logic is simple enough to
be grasped by all generals, and this should be
reason enough to decrease military spending and
seek a major dialogue with the US on transparency
and military collaborations. But, as we saw, the
purely military-strategic element is only part of
the story. There is also the part about domestic
politics. Money is power everywhere - and in the
PLA, as well - and what does the PLA want in China
in return for giving up part of its money and
present power?
This is a general question,
which then goes down to the various factions of
the PLA, as the army is not totally united. The
recent alleged offensive of general Liu Yuan
against his colleague Gu Junshan, who fell accused
of corruption, proves that in-fighting in the
military is no less cruel than among civilians.
But unless the PLA fails to find a new model to
balance its power within the party, its internal
logic (more power - more money) will prevail over
the external logic (more money for the PLA - more
trouble for China).
The answer will not be
found in the coming days but over the next few
months, when the political balance leading to the
party congress this autumn will require different
factions to take into consideration the military
vote. We shall see who in the military will win:
those who are after the money or the ones more
broadly in favor of a new, more sophisticated
strategy for China.
Note: 1. See, for
instance, Moore, Gregory (2011). An International
Relations Perspective on the Science, Politics,
and Potential of an Extraterrestrial Sino-US Arms
Race. Asian Perspective, 35, 643-658.
Francesco Sisci is a columnist for the Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore and can be reached at fsisci@gmail.com
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