The Chinese Military System

An Organizational Study Of The Chinese People's Liberation Army--second Edition, Revised And Updated

Harvey W Nelsen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367290825
• eBook ISBN: 9781000315417
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

To understand the Chinese military, and thereby the dynamics of China's peacetime army, one must understand its organizational system. To that end, Harvey Nelsen has written a book that examines in detail the entire organization of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). Dr. Nelsen studies the PLA from top to bottom. Throughout, he challenges the widely held theory that military politics in China are largely determined by personal relations among officers and that the PLA is more a civic-action army than are most military organizations. Important as a purely military study, this book is valuable also for the light it sheds on the whole of Chinese bureaucratic politics. This second edition has been revised to reflect changes that have occurred since the death of Chairman Mao as well as to incorporate new information about the Chinese military and political system during Mao's reign.

1
An Overview of the Military System

This army is powerful because of its separation into two parts; the main forces and the regional forces with the former available for operations in any area whenever necessary, and the latter concentrating on defending their own localities and attacking the enemy there in cooperation with local militia.

—Mao Tse-tung

This chapter is written partly for those readers who are seeking general information and partly as an introduction to those who have little previous knowledge of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Organizations mentioned here are described in greater detail and with more documentation in ensuing chapters.

Size and Strength

The term PLA encompasses China’s ground, naval, and air forces. The leadership chooses not to reveal its size, thus there are only approximations on how large the force is and how it is apportioned among the branches and service arms; recently published estimates range from 2.9 to over 4 million.¹ Rather than attempting to give precise figures, it is wiser to describe the PLA in order of magnitude; the military numbers somewhat less than 4 million men including ground, air, and naval forces, but excluding the paramilitary militia and production-construction corps. Over S million men are in the ground forces, while air and naval forces are estimated at 400,000 and 300,000 respectively.²

The above figures seem impressively large, or even ominous. However, the PLA may be smaller than the Soviet forces.³ China’s ground forces are undoubtedly the world’s largest, but that is partly an attempt to compensate for the relative weakness of the air and naval forces. On a per capita basis, the armed forces’ size is only about one-half the international average. Most importantly, the PLA is organized and equipped as a defensive force with scant ability to project its armies to areas distant from China’s borders. The ground forces are equipped with reliable conventional weapons, mostly of Russian design. Infantry forces are not motorized, have poor strategic mobility, and, unit for unit, have less artillery and tanks than Western or Soviet forces. There are four to six divisions designated as “airborne,” but that is not a real figure since it is unlikely that there are enough transports and helicopters in all of China to put even one division of paratroopers in the air.

The PLA Air Force has perhaps 100 obsolescent medium bombers, a few hundred obsolete light bombers, and about 500 new fighter-bombers. Rather than an aerial striking force, the Chinese choose to emphasize air defense with about 3500 fighter/interceptor aircraft including a new model nearing production. They also spent a significant portion of the air force budget in the 1960s developing an improved air-defense radar system and expanding production of surface-to-air missiles.

The PLA Navy is a coastal defense force, lacking any cruisers or aircraft carriers. It has a fleet of almost sixty diesel-powered submarines which have not been known to leave China’s coastal waters. Many of the surface vessels are patrol craft, including some modern guided-missile boats which provide an inexpensive coastal defense against warships. The navy has made no effort to build troop transports, much less to develop an amphibious strike force.

The acquisition of nuclear weapons should also be viewed as primarily defensive. China has had the atom bomb since 1964 and the hydrogen bomb since 1967. Already deployed are about 100 medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (MRBM: 700–1000 mile range; IRBM: 1500–3500 mile range). These are under the control of the Second Artillery—the PLA’s equivalent to the Soviet Strategic Rocket forces. The navy also has a nuclear submarine under development. While not nearly equalling the strategic striking power of the U.S. or USSR, China is, even now, a fully fledged member of the nuclear club. However, to use those weapons in a war of aggression would be to invite annihilation; the oft-repeated Chinese pledge never to be the first to use nuclear weapons in case of war is common sense and almost certainly a genuine commitment. Like other major powers, China views its nuclear capacity as a deterrent to would-be attackers.

Despite the fact that the PLA is behind other major armies in technical sophistication, mobility, and heavy equipment, students of the PLA agree that the Chinese military is quite capable of defending its homeland against invasion by conventional forces. This defensive credibility is due partly to sheer size but more to the high morale of the troops and the way in which the ground forces are structured.

Two major components make up the infantry. The first of these are the 37 or 38 “main force” corps (often referred to as “armies”). Each is normally composed of 3 divisions and smaller support units (about 43,000 men at full strength), having most of the artillery, armor, and heavy equipment. The remainder of the army’s main forces are armor, artillery, and railway divisions, and signal and engineer regiments which, in wartime, would be used in conjunction with the 37 corps. The regional forces, the second major component of the infantry, are equipped with lighter weapons and have fewer troops than the equivalent echelons of the corps. Most of the regional forces are independent regiments and battalions, although there are some divisions. Unit echelons and estimated personnel are listed on the following page. The figures for subordinate units do not total the sum of the next higher echelons because, for the sake of simplicity, all support elements are omitted here. See chapter 4 and the Appendix for more detailed tables of organization and equipment.

	Main Forces		Regional Forces
corps	43,000		—
division	11,600	(3 divs./corps)	7,500
regiment	2,800	(3 reg./div.)	2,000
battalion	680	(3 batt./reg.)	550
company	150	(3 comp./batt.)	130
platoon	37	(3 plat./comp.)	37
squad	12	(3 sqd./plat.)	12

Defensive Strategy

Were China to be invaded, the main forces, which include the air and naval units, would carry the battle to the enemy. If the enemy penetrated deeply into China, some of the regional forces would defend their own localities and mobilize the militia to act as guerilla units behind the enemy lines, while other militia and regional units would keep the main forces supplied and provide personnel replacements and intelligence on enemy movements. In peacetime, the militia and production-construction corps serve China’s domestic economic needs and spend only part of their time in military training. They are the Chinese “minutemen,” numbering in the tens of millions. In MaoTse-tung’s concept of defensive warfare, the invader would become bogged down, the PLA forces would surround and eventually defeat him, or compel the intruding force to withdraw.

The following 1969 quotation from Mao Tse-tung sums up both the defensive orientation of the PLA and the strategy to be adopted were an invasion to occur:

If the enemy should invade our country, we would refrain from invading his country. As a general rule, we do not fight outside of our own borders. I say we should not be provoked into doing so, not even if you send us an invitation. But if you should invade our country, then we will deal with you. We would see if you want to fight a small war or a big war. If a small war, we would fight at the border. If a big war, I propose that we make some room for that. China is a vast country. I presume the enemy would not come without the prospect of gaining something from it. We want the whole world to see that in fighting such a war, we would be on logically sound and advantageous grounds. As far as I can see, if he enters our country, we shall have the advantage … making it a good war to fight and making the enemy a victim of the quagmire of the people. As to such weapons as aircraft, tanks, and armored cars, numerous experiences have shown it is within our competence to deal with them.⁴

The emphasized clauses reveal China’s greatest defensive weakness. The force structure is best prepared against conventional invasion—a course of action which few, if any, of Peking’s potential enemies would be apt to adopt. Rather than attacking the greatest strength of the PLA, opponents could be expected to challenge the technologically deficient air and naval forces. Their weaknesses are such that a highly modern force could harass and intimidate China from the air and sea with either conventional or nuclear weapons. Of course, it would be extremely unwise to resort to nuclear weapons unless the attacker’s homeland and allies lay outside the range of the PLA’s retaliatory IRBM force.

Command and Control

The 1975 Chinese constitution stipulated that the commander in chief of the armed forces is the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, a position which is currently held by Mao’s successor, Hua Kuo-feng. He controls the military through a concurrent appointment as chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the Central Committee, Chinese Communist Party. Beneath the CMC, the military is managed...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables, Charts, and Maps
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• 1. An Overview of the Military System
• 2. The Military Administration in the Provinces and Regional Forces
• 3. The High Command
• 4. The Army’s Main Forces
• 5. Military Life
• 6. Air and Naval Forces
• 7. Paramilitary Forces: The Militia and Production-Construction Corps
• 8. China’s Quest for Security
• 9. Conclusion
• 10. Epilogue to the Second Edition: 1977–1980
• Appendix: Infantry Unit Organization Charts
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index