Reshaping the Chinese Military

The PLA's Roles and Missions in the Xi Jinping Era

Richard A. Bitzinger, James Char, Richard A. Bitzinger, James Char

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138612129
• eBook ISBN: 9780429877629
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia de China

This edited volume examines the recalibration of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) roles and missions in China's domestic and foreign policymaking since Xi Jinping's ascension to power in late 2012.

This book explores how China's growing military prowess, along with Beijing's ongoing shift away from "keeping a low profile, " owes much to the policies of the China's Communist Party under Xi Jinping's leadership. The chapters in the book share a central theme: the recalibration of the PLA roles and missions since Xi Jinping assumed the trifecta of party-state-military power. These contributions seek to explore in depth some of the key issues and scrutinize the enhancements in the PLA's operational capabilities, both in terms of its hardware as well as its "heartware" – the human elements of its development such as operational culture and doctrine. In all, the chapters document the transformative change the PLA has undergone since the profound realization of its previous limitations vis-à-vis the United States' advanced military operations of the previous century as well as pointing to continuity amid change.

This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, Chinese politics, Asian security, defense studies, and international relations, in general.

1Chinese civil–military relations

Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign and the People’s Liberation Army

James Char

A month after meeting Xi Jinping in Beijing, the commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military paid his Chinese counterpart the ultimate compliment. According to Barack Obama, “[Xi] has consolidated power faster and more comprehensively than probably anybody since Deng Xiaoping,” and “everybody’s been impressed by his clout inside of China after only a year and a half or two years.”¹ That the spectacular rise of the Central Military Commission (CMC) chairman following the 18th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has cemented Xi’s status as China’s new paramount leader since Deng Xiaoping is not in doubt; academe and media alike respectively proffer that Xi is “a very confident and strong leader” and “not to be thought of as simply a first among equals.”²

Xi’s emergence as China’s new paramount leader since Deng Xiaoping would not have been possible without first securing control of the party’s gun.³ Prior to his acknowledgment of a purported political conspiracy against him,⁴ the new leader has instituted a number of measures to secure his political status. The factional strife among civilian elites that saw the elimination of another CCP aristocrat preceding the leadership transition makes clear the importance of the party’s coercive forces to his political survival calculus. With Bo Xilai’s arrest contingent on PLA support,⁵ China’s top leader has – apart from neutralizing China’s internal security agencies⁶ – strengthened his grip on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Since Xi’s ascension, however, the PLA has found itself in a sweeping anti-corruption campaign alongside other party–state bureaucracies; two of its former leaders, Generals Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, and more than 200 senior officers up to the grade of deputy-Military Region (MR) leader,⁷ have been implicated since 2013.⁸ Unlike the former civilian commander-in-chief, Hu Jintao, who was unable to assert his authority in party and government affairs due to his weak control of the corps, Xi has built up factional support within the central military leadership,⁹ lest he also suffer Hu’s fate.

It was equally crucial – if not more important – to also take to task those who had challenged civilian authority.¹⁰ But given a key feature of Xi’s tenure is the strong allure of the PLA as his powerbase, why then has he purged the very institution that would ensure his political longevity? What was the state of civil–military ties under the previous administration, and what were the consequences of the PLA’s “conditional compliance” under the post-revolutionary leaders – Hu and Jiang Zemin – before the 18th Party Congress? Certainly, changes in civilian control inherited from the Jiang-Hu eras following the civil–military bifurcation in post-Reform China had forced Xi’s hand to unravel the institutional flaws that had crept into CCP–PLA interactions. But what, apart from a crisis of legitimacy, had influenced Xi’s actions? And to what extent has he been successful in bringing civilian authority back in civil–military interactions after assuming the trifecta of party–state–military power? This chapter advances the key determinants of the emerging dynamic between China’s civilian and military elites, and analyzes the politics behind the fight against military malfeasance.

Conceptualizing contemporary CCP–PLA relations

That the CCP has dominated China since 1949 means the civil–military dynamic in the country remains as party–military relations.¹¹ This chapter prescribes that the best term to describe current civil–military relations is You Ji’s notion of “conditional subjective control.”¹² Whereas objective control of the gun has developed to curtail excessive politicization, its inherent limitations necessarily mean that subjective control has remained more viable.¹³ Other than the Mao Zedong/Deng Xiaoping interregnum, and during the transition first from Deng to Jiang Zemin, and then from Jiang to Hu Jintao, military authority has been the prerogative of China’s pre-eminent leader by virtue of his command of the gun.¹⁴ Unlike Mao and Deng, however, the post-revolutionary leaders, Jiang and Hu, possessed neither revolutionary credentials nor extensive personal ties to the PLA leadership prior to their CMC appointments, leading to the detachment of military elites from their civilian counterparts in the post-Deng era. This CCP–PLA divide is accentuated further with the CMC operating outside the Politburo,¹⁵ as soldiers gain career advancement increasingly based on professional expertise.¹⁶

While stronger personal connections within the party establishment – as the “Princeling” scion of a former revolutionary – has helped Xi Jinping consolidate authority over the PLA,¹⁷ his concurrent assumption of party–state–military power certainly supported his cause.¹⁸ While the notion of “conditional compliance” applies to Xi¹⁹ – since he too shares the lack of military credentials à la Jiang and Hu – events since November 2012 have demonstrated that even if civilian objective control of promoting PLA corporate interests has continued,²⁰ Xi’s deeper intrusion into the latter’s institutional autonomy imposes stronger subjective control. Xi has distinguished himself from his post-revolutionary predecessors by frequently invoking the power of his office as well as emphasizing the authority of the “CMC Chairman Responsibility System” as the foundation of his command,²¹ and cultivated his commander-in-chief image.²² Apart from his frequent visits to military installations, Xi invokes maxims often to guide the actions of its top brass and rank-and-file.

Still, whereas Xi may have outshone Jiang and Hu, his lack of Mao and Deng’s revolutionary credentials means he had initially failed to command the unconditional obedience of the party and government in general²³ – and concomitantly, Maoist and Dengist absolute control of the military more specifically. Indeed, Xi has had to compensate for those limitations by institutionalizing direct controls over the party–state–military nexus to ensure the subordination of the regime’s vast bureaucracies.²⁴ Toward that end, he has enhanced his powers by establishing and leading all the key sectors of the regime – including national security, foreign affairs and the economy;²⁵ and instituted new task forces that he himself leads, including the Central Leading Group (CLG) for Comprehensively Deepening Reform and the Central National Security Commission (CNSC). As CMC chairman, he also set up the National Defence and Military Reform CLG. Where command and control of the military is concerned, these point toward a new model of civil–military relations in China; if anything, Xi has underlined he is no mere PLA figurehead.

It follows that although the PLA’s objective compliance with CCP rule has remained unchanged – in view of its status as a standing army that is deferential to the party–state on non-military issues – the degree of subjective control exercised by its commander-in-chief has undergone qualitative change. The PLA’s monopoly on coercion, under the shadow of the purported coup prior to the 18th Party Congress, would have influenced the CMC chairman to aspire toward methods that privilege him control of the party’s gun in the manner of China’s former revolutionary leaders. To command an increasingly corporatized and cohesive military, Xi has first built up his powerbase within the CMC to exercise pseudo-“strongman” command before institutionalizing control mechanisms through his formal appointment. Although it still remains arguable whether the incumbent Chinese leader now enjoys automatic control,²⁶ Xi’s enhancement of military legislation and enforcement of stronger supervision mechanisms has won him – at least – authoritative civilian control.

Nowhere is this authority more apparent than in Xi Jinping’s application of his signature anti-corruption campaign, which appears to have resulted in the civil–military dynamic approximating toward the PLA working under CCP intrusive monitoring²⁷ – as opposed to the unprecedented level of autonomy enjoyed by military leaders prevalent notably under his immediate predecessor. Inarguably, Xi’s fight against graft in the military has attacked the networks of corrupt elements in the PLA following Dengist reforms.²⁸ Xi’s purge of the very institution meant to secure his rule and maintain CCP authoritarian resilience, raises an interesting question: If the raison d’ être of the PLA remains the preservation of single-party rule, why then has the party leader decided to move against it?²⁹

Changes in China’s strategic environment

Outwardly, corruption at the highest levels of the military leadership meant ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgement
• Introduction
• 1 Chinese civil–military relations: Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign and the People’s Liberation Army
• 2 The People’s Liberation Army and China’s Taiwan policy under Xi Jinping: one joint actor without its own agenda
• 3 A worsening Sino–US geostrategic battle in Asian maritime domains
• 4 US–China military relations: competition and cooperation in the Obama and Trump eras
• 5 PLA perspectives on national security: institutional interests and party–military relations under Xi
• 6 Space, the new domain: space operations and Chinese military reforms
• 7 Innovation in China’s defense technology base: foreign technology and military capabilities
• 8 Reforming China’s defense industry
• 9 The business of defense: the People’s Liberation Army and defense–industrial development in China
• Index