Through extensive primary source analysis and independent analysis, this report seeks to answer a number of important questions regarding the state of China’s armed forces. The authors found that the PLA is keenly aware of its many weaknesses and is vigorously striving to correct them. Although it is only natural to focus on the PLA’s growing capabilities, understanding the PLA’s weaknesses—and its self-assessments—is no less important.
Presents the results of a conference that brought together many of the nation's top experts to evaluate issues of structure and process in the People's Liberation Army.
How will China use its increasing military capabilities in the future? China faces a complicated security environment with a wide range of internal and external threats. Rapidly expanding international interests are creating demands for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to conduct new missions ranging from protecting Chinese shipping from Somali pirates to evacuating citizens from Libya. The most recent Chinese defense white paper states that the armed forces must "make serious preparations to cope with the most complex and difficult scenarios . . . so as to ensure proper responses . . . at any time and under any circumstances." Based on a conference co-sponsored by Taiwan's Council of Advanced Policy Studies, RAND, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and National Defense University, The People's Liberation Army and Contingency Planning in China brings together leading experts from the United States and Taiwan to examine how the PLA prepares for a range of domestic, border, and maritime...
China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has embarked on its most wide-ranging and ambitious restructuring since 1949, including major changes to most of its key organizations. The restructuring reflects the desire to strengthen PLA joint operation capabilities- on land, sea, in the air, and in the space and cyber domains. The reforms could result in a more adept joint warfighting force, though the PLA will continue to face a number of key hurdles to effective joint operations, Several potential actions would indicate that the PLA is overcoming obstacles to a stronger joint operations capability. The reforms are also intended to increase Chairman Xi Jinping's control over the PLA and to reinvigorate Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organs within the military. Xi Jinping's ability to push through reforms indicates that he has more authority over the PLA than his recent predecessors. The restructuring could create new opportunities for U.S.-China military contacts.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the largest army in the world. China is predicted to be on the brink of overtaking the USA as the world's largest economy, and China's military capabilities and global ambitions are the single greatest long-term pre-occupation of Western governments. The PLA has progressed steadily – if slowly – since its creation in 1949, from a mass army of unsophisticated infantry limited to 'human wave' tactics into a highly sophisticated force with wide capabilities. The most recent reforms (1989 to the present day) have been made possible by massive economic liberalization, and have seen not only the modernization of all the armed forces but the beginnings of global outreach, even including Chinese participation in UN peace-keeping missions to Africa, the Middle East, and Haiti. Featuring rare photographs and specially commissioned color artwork, this study explores the developing structure, organization, equipment, appearance, and character of the Chinese People's Liberation Army from its creation until today.
The product of a 1998 RAND conference, this collection discusses the People's Liberation Army. It covers the non-hardware side of the PLA's modernization and examines the critical software side, including civil-military relations, professionalism, logistics, training, doctrine, and more.
目錄 CHAPTER 1. THE MILITARY HISTORY OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY CHAPTER 2. ORGANIZATION REFORM IN “DEEPENING DEFENSE” CHAPTER 3. MILITARY ORGANIZATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA CHAPTER 4. THREE MAJOR ARMED FORCES OF THE PLA CHAPTER 5. PROFESSIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION OF CHINA CHAPTER 6. THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF THE CCP CHAPTER 7. PLA POLITICAL WORK DEPARTMENT CHAPTER 8. POLITICAL WORK EDUCATION IN THE PLA CHAPTER 9. PLA’S HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT REFERENCE
This book is the product of a conference, held in August 2000, that brought together many of the nation's top experts to evaluate issues of structure and process in the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The editors believe that fundamental knowledge about the PLA can be ascertained from the study of its organizational structure, and that this type of structure and process analysis is the critical first step toward a revolution in our understanding of the central issues, including how the PLA will fight. The papers in this volume present a comprehensive view of the administrative and operational structure of the PLA. In exhaustive detail, they discuss the leadership, history, organization, functions, and possible future direction of each of the PLA's Commissions and Military Departments.
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.
