Xi
raises bar on PLA 'combat
readiness' By Willy Lam
General Secretary and Commander-in-Chief
Xi Jinping has lost no time in establishing his
stamp of authority over the People's Liberation
Army (PLA), which is deemed an important power
base of the princeling leader. Barely two months
after he took over the chairmanship of the
policy-setting Central Military Commission (CMC)
from President Hu Jintao, Xi has passed a series
of regulations on "administering the army with
strictness and austerity".
The 59-year-old
Xi has with lightning speed presided over a
large-scale reshuffle of senior staff in the four
general departments as well as the seven military
regions (MRs). More significantly, the CMC chief
has put significantly more emphasis than his
predecessors on combat readiness, reiterating that
it is the
calling of every soldier to
fight and win wars.
On different occasions
in the past month or so, Xi has demanded that the
2.4 million-strong PLA's profess "absolute
loyalty" to the party leadership. The Xinhua News
Agency in early January released a set of
instructions from the General Political Department
(GPD) and the PLA Disciplinary Inspection
Commission on "solidly implementing the objectives
of administering [military] party organizations
with strictness and administering the army with
strictness".
The instructions stated,
"Through studying and education, we must hoist
high the flag [of the party] and heed the
instructions of the party... We must run
[military] party organizations with strictness and
strictly oversee [the conduct of] officers." The
series of dictums also pointed out that officers
and enlisted forces alike must "safeguard a high
level of concentration [of authority] and unity
among the troops".
Apart from unquestioned
loyalty to the "CCP Central Committee with comrade
Xi Jinping as General Secretary", the PLA is asked
to distinguish itself in frugality and austerity.
It is a common perception among Chinese public
intellectuals that PLA officers are at least as
corrupt as CCP cadres. Last month, military
authorities passed the so-called "Ten Regulations
on Improving the Work Style of the Army". PLA
personnel, particularly mid- to senior-level
officers are forbidden from holding big banquets
and to give or receive gifts.
Liquor is
banned for all occasions. Also proscribed are red
carpets and "empty talk" when senior officers tour
the regions. Moreover, military personnel have to
seek the approval of the CMC General Office before
giving views on "major and sensitive issues" in
the public media. "In terms of its code of ethics,
the PLA should live up to the people's
expectations and stand high in Chinese society,"
the official PLA Daily commented when reporting on
the Ten Regulations.
Just before the start
of the 18th CCP Congress on November 8, the CMC
announced a new slate of leaders for the four
general departments, the Navy, Air Force and
Second Artillery as well as the seven military
regions (MR). This major reshuffle was presided
over by President Hu and reflected his desire to
promote at least several of his key PLA proteges
prior to his retirement.
In the past
fortnight, however, Xi has masterminded the
appointments of a few dozen deputy heads of the
four general departments, the Navy, Air Force and
Second Artillery as well as the deputy commanders,
deputy political commissars as well as the chiefs
of staff (CoS) within the seven MRs.
A
dozen-odd senior staff in the General Staff
Department (GSD), GPD, the General Logistics
Department, the Second Artillery, as well as the
Jinan, Lanzhou, Shenyang and Guangzhou MRs have
been reshuffled. The official Chinese media has
paid much attention to the promotion of the PLA's
youngest lieutenant general, the 54-year-old Yi
Xiaoguang from deputy commander of the Nanjing MR
to assistant chief at the GSD.
Also
significant is the appointment of Major General
Qin Shengxiang, a former head of the GPD
Organization Department, to the post of director
of the CMC General Office. Because the CMC General
Office is the de facto nerve center of the entire
military, its director most often is considered a
protege and confidante of the CMC chairman.
Apart from continuing the tradition of the
frequent personnel movements between headquarters
units and the field command, Xi has a record of
favoring officers with professional and academic
credentials. For example, Deputy Commandant of the
National Defense University Major General Wang
Xixin early last month was appointed deputy
commander of the Shenyang MR.
Moreover,
the CoS of six of the seven MRs have been changed.
These new chiefs - whose posts are deemed
launching pads for future promotion to MR
commanders as well as senior slots in the four
general departments - are all former heads of
group armies. For example, Ma Yiming, the former
commander of the renowned 26th Group Army, which
falls within the jurisdiction of the Jinan MR, was
promoted the CoS of the MR in early January. His
predecessor, Lieutenant General Zhao Zongqi, had
late last year been elevated to the post of
commander of the same MR.
While Chairman
Xi obviously values veterans with solid command
experience, he also has given the nod to rising
stars from less traditional backgrounds. For
example, the only MR-level CoS who has never been
the commander of a Group Army - Major General Yang
Hui of the Nanjing MR - has rich foreign
intelligence gathering experience. The 49-year-old
Yang, who is also the only MR CoS born in the
1960s, had worked as a military attache in the
Chinese embassies in Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union
and, later, the Russian Federation.
Given
the well-entrenched tradition among military
officers of professing personal fealty to the
commander-in-chief, who has given them big raises,
Xi's rapid-fire series of personnel moves seems
geared toward augmenting his already formidable
authority in the PLA.
Another message that
the commander-in-chief might be sending his
officers may be that, while satisfactory
performance can earn timely elevations, heavier
demands will be made on their ability to fight and
win wars. A much-enhanced degree of combat
readiness was the theme of Xi's visit to the
Guangzhou MR last month. It also is significant
that the official media used the term Guangzhou
Zhanqu [literally Guangzhou War Theater] to
describe the military region.
In Xi's
first regional inspection trip, the CMC honcho
vowed to "comprehensively strengthen military
construction from the point of view of being more
revolutionary, more modernized and more
institutionalized". He told officers and soldiers
to "to firmly remember that following the party's
instructions is the soul of a strong army, while
the ability to fight and to win wars is the
quintessence of a strong army".
Military
chiefs from ex-president Jiang Zemin to Hu
routinely have called upon the top brass to
"prepare for military struggle". Xi, however, was
the first supremo to spell out in no uncertain
terms that the PLA must "push forward preparations
for military struggle through insisting on using
the criteria of actual combat... We must
ceaselessly boost the idea that soldiers join the
PLA to fight, and that [the calling of] officers
is to lead soldiers in combat and to train them
for [real] warfare."
In Guangzhou, Xi also
said, "We must train our troops with tough and
strict criteria which are based on the needs of
actual combat." He reiterated that the "core" of
the PLA's multi-dimensional military tasks was
"the ability to win regional warfare under
IT-oriented conditions."
Indeed, since the
end of the Maoist era, Xi is the first PLA chief
to have given such graphic instructions about the
army's constant combat readiness: "We must ensure
that our troops are ready when called upon, that
they are fully capable of fighting, and that they
must win every war".
Xi's hard-line
remarks were repeated by the "Instruction on
Military Training in 2013" that was issued by the
GSD earlier last week. The Instruction asked all
military staff to "bolster their ideological
[commitment] to engaging in combat". Officers and
soldiers were asked to "do well in preparations
for fighting wars" and "to train the troops under
difficult and severe conditions and based on the
requirements of actual combat". The document also
read "We must raise our ability in fighting wars
and in solving major difficulties that affect
training in actual combat."
The imperative
of heightened combat readiness was evident in the
stepped-up training reportedly going on in the
newly established Sansha Military District within
the Guangzhou MR, which has responsibility for
safeguarding Chinese sovereignty over the Spratly
and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. The
PLA Daily reported officers and soldiers in the
area had during the New Year Holidays revved up
maneuvers, including those relating to "handling
emergencies".
The paper stated, "The
[Sansha] troops are implementing multi-directional
and multi-faceted work related to [promoting]
safety in combat readiness... Once an emergency
arises, [the troops] can spring into action
quickly, hold on to their positions, and win
battles."
Equally significant is the fact
that CMC Chairman Xi has continued the tradition
first started by predecessor Hu a few years ago of
being much more transparent regarding not only the
development of new weapons but also the activities
of individual PLA units. For example, the Ministry
of National Defense for the past month or so has
volunteered information regarding developments in
hardware ranging from a new generation of engines
for jetfighters to progress in the Beidou
Navigation Satellite System. The PLA media also
has carried relatively detailed reports on the
deployments of China's first aircraft carrier, the
country's first generation of drones and even the
movement of vessels and aircraft near disputed
islands in the East China Sea and the South China
Sea.
There seems little doubt that, as
Chinese military commentators have pointed out,
the recent flexing of military muscle - and thinly
veiled threats of actual combat - is integral to
enhanced psychological warfare particularly in
view of exacerbated confrontation with Japan over
the Diaoyu-Senkaku archipelago.
As
Shanghai-based international relations expert
Professor Ni Lexiong indicated, apparently the
release of hawkish instructions by the PLA since
late last year was a form of "counter-intimidation
tactics" due largely to the war games staged by
Japan's Self-Defense Forces in connection with
guarding Japanese sovereignty over the islets.
The speed and sheer ferocity of the
marathon measures taken by the putative "core" of
the CCP's Fifth-Generation Leadership to bolster
discipline among PLA officers and to significantly
scale up their combat capabilities, however, could
spell a watershed in the way that Beijing is using
military prowess to safeguard the country's
national interests as well as its global status as
a quasi-superpower.
Dr Willy Wo-Lap
Lam is a Senior Fellow at The Jamestown
Foundation. He has worked in senior editorial
positions in international media including
Asiaweek newsmagazine, South China Morning Post,
and the Asia-Pacific Headquarters of CNN. He is
the author of five books on China, including the
recently published Chinese Politics in the Hu
Jintao Era: New Leaders, New Challenges. Lam is an
Adjunct Professor of China studies at Akita
International University, Japan, and at the
Chinese University of Hong Kong.
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