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The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) was once focused on
China's immediate periphery. The PLA Navy had no "blue water" naval
capabilities and very limited combat logistics support. The Air
Force could not fly long-distance missions overwater or operate
effectively in conjunction with the Navy or naval air forces; nor
could it coordinate joint, precision strikes with the missiles of
the Second Artillery. Land forces, meanwhile, could move
effectively within China by rail, and could operate on China's
periphery, but were neither capable of nor equipped for
long-distance force projection. Dr. Larry M. Wortzel's Letort Paper
analyzes a body of literature that provides internal critiques of
PLA capabilities. He starts with an analysis of the book
Long-Distance Operations, by a strategist from the Academy of
Military Science of the Chinese PLA, published in 2007.
The tenor of U.S.-China relations for much of the first year of the
administration of President George W. Bush was set by a crisis that
need not have occurred. How the situation was handled and
eventually resolved is instructive. It tells us about a beleaguered
communist leadership in the buildup to major generational
transition (scheduled for late 2002 and early 2003) and the mettle
of a democratically elected U.S. government tested early in its
tenure by a series of foreign policy crises and a carefully
coordinated set of devastating terrorist strikes against the
continental United States. The way the April 2001 crisis on Hainan
Island was resolved must be chalked up as a success for the United
States. the key was Washington's ability to convince Beijing that
holding the air crew was hurting, and not advancing, Chinese
interests.
Recent books and journal articles published in China provide new
insights into nuclear doctrine, operations, training, and the
employment of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) strategic rocket
forces. The major insights come from exploiting sections of a
doctrinal text published for PLA institutions of higher military
education by the Chinese National Defense University, A Guide to
the Study of Campaign Theory (Zhanyi Lilun Xuexi Zhinan). In the
view of many in the PLA, the military power of the United States,
the potential to use that power to coerce or dominate China, and
the ability to threaten China's pursuit of its own its interests,
presents a latent threat to China. Additionally, China's own
threats against democratic Taiwan, and the fact that PLA leaders
believe that the United States is likely to come to Taiwan's
assistance in the event of Chinese aggression in the Taiwan Strait,
magnifies the threat that PLA officers perceive from the United
States. This perceived threat drives the PLA to follow U.S.
military developments more carefully than those of other nations
and to be prepared to counter American forces. The PLA is mixing
nuclear and conventional missile forces in its military doctrine.
Also, some in China are questioning whether the doctrine of
"no-first-use" of nuclear weapons serves China's deterrent needs.
With the armed forces of the People's Republic of China celebrating
their 75th anniversary on August 1, 2002, it only seemed
appropriate and timely to take stock of the world's largest
military. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has officially been in
existence for three-quarters of a century, and its history is one
filled with turmoil and warfare. One weekend in September 2002, a
group of PLA specialists gathered at Carlisle Barracks, the home of
the U.S. Army War College, to assess what lessons China's soldiers
had drawn from the history of their own armed forces. This volume
constitutes the final product of months of extensive research by
the individual authors and hours of intense discussion at the 3-day
conference by approximately 50 participants. The conference was
sponsored jointly by the American Enterprise Institute, the
Heritage Foundation, and the U.S. Army War College. It is with
great pleasure that I commend this book to anyone with a serious
interest in the Chinese military.
National security decisionmaking under stress or crisis management
is something with which I have had some firsthand experience over
the course of my career in government service. Most relevant to the
topic of this edited volume is my tour of duty as U.S. Ambassador
in Beijing which began in May 1989-a month before Tiananmen of June
3 and 4. In my position as chief U.S. diplomat in China, I was an
actor and an observer-along with many dedicated and resourceful
U.S. Embassy personnel-to the events that constituted a case study
of Chinese communist crisis management. My colleagues and I were
witnesses to what, in my judgment, constituted one of the gravest
crises to the communists' control of China since 1949. We engaged
the Chinese leadership during this time of tension and precipitous
action.
This is the eighth volume on the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to
be published by the Strategic Studies Institute. It is the product
of a conference held at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, from
September 23-25, 2005, to examine the PLA and the global security
environment in which it operates. This gathering was the 18th in a
series of annual conferences on China's PLA. I have been privileged
to be involved with and/or attend most of these gatherings over the
years. At the 2005 conference, I was honored to deliver the keynote
address in which I offered some of my insights and observations
about China derived from a lifetime of living in or working on the
Middle Kingdom. More than 50 experts on China participating in this
conference provided critical comments and guidance on the initial
drafts of the chapters included in this volume.
A decade ago, many scholars and policy analysts who followed China
dismissed the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as an antiquated force
that was essentially infantry, fighting with decades-old weapons,
poor communications, and World War II era doctrine. China's nuclear
forces were also technologically outmoded and fixed to silo or
tunnel launch sites. Very little information was available about
China's "Second Artillery Corps," as China calls its strategic
rocket forces. The United States knew that the PLA maintained a
separate corps of rocket troops, but its doctrine and command and
control structures remained shrouded in secrecy. Chinese diplomats,
political leaders, and security thinkers regularly announced that
China would adhere to a "no first use" policy, but very little
published military information was available about how China
intended to use its missile forces in crisis or war.
On November 23, 2013, China's Ministry of National Defense
spokesman announced that a new air defense intercept zone (ADIZ)
will be established by the government to include the Diaoyu, or
Senkaku Islands. Sovereignty over these islands is disputed by
Japan, China, and Taiwan. The new ADIZ also included a submerged
rock that falls inside overlapping Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ)
claimed by China, Japan, and South Korea. Pundits and policy
analysts quickly engaged in a broad debate about whether China's
expanded ADIZ is designed to create tension in Asia, or is part of
a broader plan to impose a new definition of China's territorial
space in the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile, to deal with cyber
penetrations attributed to the Chinese People's Liberation Army
(PLA), the U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and
State are devising new means to protect intellectual property and
secrets from the PLA's computer network operations.
Tracking the evolution of the Red Army through the war against
Japan and the Chinese civil war, Wortzel's book provides a
comprehensive basic reference focusing on the major events, people,
and issues that have produced the historical legacy of the People's
Liberation Army. Placing contemporary Chinese military history in
the context of China's 19th century clashes with the West and
Japan, Wortzel illustrates how the imposition of unequal treaties
by foreign powers conditioned China's 20th century defense forces
and actions and explains how the Communist military forces
developed. It also shows how fractionalization in the Communist
military leadership led to the Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong's
purges.
Drawing on a substantial number of sources available only in
Chinese as well as on English-language secondary sources, the book
provides a basic reference aimed at orienting the nonspecialist to
the significant events and people in China's recent military
history. The book will also provide a quick reference for the
specialist in Chinese history.
China has evolved from a nation with local and regional security
interests to a major economic and political power with global
interests, investments, and political commitments. It now requires
a military that can project itself around the globe, albeit on a
limited scale, to secure its interests. Therefore, as Larry M.
Wortzel explains, the Chinese Communist Party leadership has
charged the People's Liberation Army (PLA) with new and challenging
missions that require global capabilities. Advances in technology
and the development of indigenous weapons platforms in China,
combined with reactions to modern conflicts, have produced a
military force very different from that which China has fielded in
the past. Wortzel presents a clear and sobering picture of the
PLA's modernization effort as it expands into space and cyberspace,
and as it integrates operations in the traditional domains of war.
This book will appeal to the specialist in security and foreign
policy issues in Asia as well as to the person interested in arms
control, future warfare, and global military strategies. The book
puts China's military growth into historical context for readers of
recent military and diplomatic history. About the Author Larry M.
Wortzel, spent much of his thirty-two-year military career in the
Asia-Pacific region, including two tours of duty as a military
attachein China. He served as director of the Strategic Studies
Institute at the U.S. Army War College and, after retirement, as
Asian studies director and vice president at the Heritage
Foundation. For a decade he was a commissioner on the U.S.-China
Economic and Security Review Commission. He is the author or editor
of ten previously published books about China. He lives in
Williamsburg, Virginia.
CONTENTS Introduction Geographic Ruminations The Chinese Military
and the Peripheral States in the 21st Century: A Security Tour
d'Horizon PLA Capabilities in the 21st Century: How Does China
Assess Its Future Security Needs? Advanced Military Technology and
the PLA: Priorities and Capabilities for the 21st Century
U.S.-Chinese Military Relations in the 21st Century Taiwan's
Military in the 21st Century: Redefinition and Reorganization
Taiwan's Military: A View from Afar Concluding Comment: The
Political Angle-- New Phenomena in Party-Army Relations About the
Authors Index
Some of the key aspects of doctrinal, manpower, and technical
modernization of China's armed forces are the subject of this
unique collection of essays. The volume goes beyond a limited
assessment of China's military modernization, to stress the
implications of modernization with respect to regional Asian
security and the broader international scene. Varying perspectives
on China's military modernization are presented against a framework
that considers U.S. national security policy, the Strategic Defense
Initiative, and strategic trade with China, in addition to China's
own nuclear deterrent and its military posture vis-a-vis the Soviet
Union, Japan, and Southeast Asia. The critical issue of China's
defense modernization is presented in light of practical, domestic,
political, and economic constraints on defense modernization facing
the Beijing government.
[T]he book is splendid. Wortzel combines his expertise in Sinology
with his meticulous attention to epistemology and methodology in
studying the class structure and stratification in Maoist China,
accomplishing the rare feat of freeing himself from ideological
bias and parochial ethnic subjectivity. . . . It is indeed
refreshing to read Wortzel's realistic book. Journal of Third World
Studies Although the hierarchy of class is said to have been
replaced with distinctions between the friends and enemies of
Communism, Larry Wortzel argues that the Chinese Communist Party
has in reality evolved into a ruling class which serves its own
interests. Drawing on literature from dissident Marxists and using
analyses of writings from underground journals and the Beijing
publication People's Literature, the author examines perceptions of
social stratification and finds that the determinants of social and
economic standing now appear to depend on lines of management and
authority, residence in urban or rural areas, and Party membership,
especially when combined with positions of authority This work
presents one of the first comprehensive analyses of the class
system in socialist China as it exists in practice rather as
conceived in theory.
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