Suchergebnisse

The overhaul of the People's Liberation Army will move it away from its Soviet-style command and control structures towards the American model, which is believed to be more adapted to the new security environment and facilitates long distance power projection to protect China's far-flung national interest abroad. The Communist Party's organisational presence is reaffirmed to ensure the loyalty of the military as the Party considers it the ultimate source of its power and final defence of its rule.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) holds a special place of honor in China as its liberator, its protector, the stalwart defender of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the guardian of the Revolution. Despite this honored position, the PLA has suffered an extraordinarily rocky history of alternating support and neglect, and has spent the last 20 years attempting to recoup its position from the mistakes of it's past. It was both neglected and ill-used for 20 years by the Maoist regime. It's strategies were muddled, its equipment obsolete, its funding was uncertain, its officer corps is underpaid and under trained, and its troops are a non-professional transient population. In the 80s it was authorized to create or acquire state owned enterprises (SOEs) and other businesses in the hope that it could largely finance itself and save the political leadership from the necessity of raising more taxes. This policy was a disaster for both the PLA and the Chinese economy from which both are still laboriously recovering.

The suppression of the prodemocracy movement on the Chinese mainland in June 1989 has left American sinologists uncertain about the future political and security roles of the People's Liberation Army. The current policy of the leadership in Beijing seems to be to charge the PLA with the suppression of domestic "class enemies"—a responsibility not embraced with enthusiasm. Together with that development is another that apparently redefines the traditional security responsibilities of the PLA. Since at least 1985, the Communist Chinese leadership has argued that a major conflict involving the principal military powers is very unlikely. "Small wars," it is maintained, calculated to resolve territorial and national interest conflicts are far more likely. The apparent intention is to groom the PLA for such an environment. The rulers of China may well view nationalistic, irredentist wars not only as an occasion to resolve some external problems, but as an opportunity to reconsecrate the military to Communist party purpose.

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) and its various branches carry the prudent legacy of its ancient history. Since its creation in 1927, time and again, the PLA has acted as an effective arm of the vanguard party in establishing and securing the Heaven. Following the theoretical underpinnings of China's paramount leader Mao, today the PLA is a formidable force capable of conducting operations in every domain of war. However, under President Xi Jinping, the PLA has undergone considerable restructuring and modernization. This article aims to briefly understand and analyse such structural reconfigurations and modernization plans. It uses academic, journalistic, and Sino-American official sources in exploring the PLA's restructuring and modernization. It concludes that the PLA has undergone massive structural reconfiguration and modernization in terms of material and doctrine. It also highlights that the renewed deployments of the PLA under a renewed doctrinal awakening and a strategic thought could have a great impact on its future operations.

Focuses on the PLA relationship with the Communist party, especially following the military suppression of student demonstrations in the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. Role in domestic and foreign policy, the defense budget, military strategy, and professionalization vs. ideology.