Air University Review, November-December 1981
of tortoise shells and tigers’ tails
Dr. Paul H. B. Godwin
To the outside observer, the U.S.S.R.’s highly mobile tank and mechanized units present a lethal threat to China’s obsolescent ground forces. Yet the Chinese have disparagingly described these units as Soviet "tortoise shells," arguing that the Russians have become overly dependent on what amounts to a logistic nightmare on the battlefield. Similarly, the Soviet link with Vietnam was thought to deter China from taking any military action against Vietnam, but the Chinese invaded while the U.S.S.R. looked on. In its own words, China touched the tiger’s tail. This gap between China’s own view of its defense and national security policies and that of those who looked on prompted this present analysis.
P.H.B.G.
The basic issues facing the Chinese leadership as it plans its defense modernization have been so frequently analyzed in academic, governmental, and press circles that it is difficult to conceive of a new conceptualization that will cast any different light on the issues involved.1 Furthermore, official Chinese commentaries in the press and radio broadcasts have become practically redundant in their recitation of the litany of problems the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) must face as it seeks to modernize.
Two critical decisions were made in the past couple of years that set the basic parameters for the modernization of the Chinese armed forces. The first was that modernization of the defense industries would depend on the overall modernization of the national economy; therefore, the defense establishment must not anticipate any special funding that would alter the trend of allocations set in 1972. The second decision was that, to the extent its current force structure permits, the basic doctrine and strategy of the PLA would be revised to accommodate the anticipated slow but steady increase in the armed forces’ war-fighting capabilities. In effect, the military establishment was told that its priorities, as they were expressed in the defense debate of 1976-78, would not dominate the programs associated with the "Four Modernizations" of agriculture, industry, science and technology, and national defense.
The concept of modernization when it is applied to the Chinese armed forces is multilayered. At one level it refers simply to the process of updating weapons from models based on Soviet designs of the 1950s to technologies developed in the 1970s. This rather simplistic approach is still often used in press reports analyzing China’s most recent "browsing"2 through the products of Western arms manufacturers. Knowledgeable and sophisticated analysts have long recognized, however, the far more complex facets of modernization faced by the Chinese military hierarchy. It is recognized that beyond weapons technology, China’s problems are located in command, control, and communications (C3) equipment; target acquisition and fire control systems; strategic and tactical reconnaissance systems; anti-atomic, biological, chemical (anti-ABC) warfare systems; logistic support and mobility; and the entire range of modern battlefield support systems. Beyond acquiring such weapons and equipment, training the armed forces in the use and maintenance of technologically advanced weapon systems and equipment is a problem of major proportions in a technologically unsophisticated society. Equally, if not more important, basic issues of present and future "threat" environments have to be resolved, and appropriate decisions on doctrine and strategy made, in order to establish priorities that will structure the defense modernization process. This is not to say that these problems cannot be overcome, but that they are complex, time-consuming, and riddled with potential for intense internal disputes.
Defense modernization on the scale sought by the Chinese military hierarchy is not only a complex and multifaceted process that involves far more than simply updating weapons and equipment, it is rendered even more difficult by the current requirement to integrate the needs of the defense establishment into the overall objectives of the economic programs covered by the Four Modernizations rubric—a difficulty increased by the belt-tightening policies that emerged from the Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in December 1978. Since that agonizing reappraisal, along with a basic shift in resource allocation, the defense sector of the economy has been called on to contribute more to civil production while many planned purchases of foreign technology have been either suspended or canceled. This belt tightening will evidently extend beyond the scheduled 1979-81 readjustment program originally announced as the current leadership attempts to create a more viable foundation for the long-term outline program for the Four Modernizations.3 As part of the readjustment policy, the modernization of national defense has been given the lowest priority in resource allocation,4 although the continued importation of high technology precision machinery from the West and Japan will undoubtedly play a significant role in the defense sector of the economy. Defense expenditure trends established in 1972, which have permitted an average annual growth rate of 1 to 2 percent, will continue to set a critical limitation on what defense equipment can be imported, while basic weaknesses in the economy will have to be corrected before any extensive reallocation of resources to defense will occur.5
This decision has a significant impact on China’s continuing search for a modernization strategy that will ultimately provide Beijing* with a viable, self-sustaining (self-reliant) defense economy. The abrupt break with the U.S.S.R. in 1960 and the resultant chaos in the defense industries warned the Chinese against creating a replica of their initial reliance on the Soviet Union. Simply accepting production facilities without integrating the technologies related to weapon system and equipment design into the infrastructure of research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) that must underlie viable defense industries is not acceptable to the current leadership. The goal established for defense industries fits with policies set in the 1950s, but the lack of success in creating a viable defense industrial base and its RDT&E infrastructure after the break with the U.S.S.R. has led to vast gaps between China and its current and potential adversaries. The cost involved in the time and resources necessary to close these gaps is formidable, and the relative priority given to defense modernization pushes the modernization of the PLA even farther into the distance. In one sense, the delay created by the present priority structure may serve the Chinese armed forces well. Decisions made now are critical, and if the direct modernization of the defense industries has been slowed down for a few years, then the evaluation of available foreign technologies can occur without the pressure created by the need to make early decisions. Similarly, given greater time in which to develop a set of priorities, then the increasing pool of technologically and scientifically trained personnel to be created by the new educational policies will provide the defense establishment with a stronger human resource base to draw on.
*Throughout this analysis, Chinese will be transliterated using the official pinyin romanization system. Peking thus becomes Beijing.
This stringing out of defense modernization is feasible, however, only if the Chinese perceive that they can rely on their current force structure to supply the necessary military support for their national security policies.
Since the early 1970s, Chinese analyses of the international system and global politics have laid the major threat to Chinese security at the door of the Soviet Union. Since that time, Beijing has followed a basic policy of aligning China with the Western powers and Japan in an attempt to counter both the military and diplomatic strategies of Moscow—as these strategies are understood in Beijing. With this basic policy of realignment, perhaps as early as 1972, Chinese fear of the Soviet threat to its security has evidently been reduced. With the exception of worst-possible-case scenarios that came from the military-industrial complex during the defense modernization debate of 1976-78, the Soviet threat has been analyzed publicly as a long-term problem, and the degree of threat to China has been viewed as much a function of the willingness of the Western alliance and Japan to counter Soviet military strategy as it is a function of any particular efforts by Beijing to improve China’s military capabilities. As Jonathan Pollack has suggested,6 the fact that Chinese defense expenditures grew only very slowly between 1972 and 1977, even though industrial capacity increased by more than one-half, would indicate a far less foreboding perception of the Soviet military threat than Beijing’s pronouncements of the dangers of Soviet hegemonism would lead the casual observer to conclude. Even the recent test of China’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers cannot be viewed as an indicator of any heightened threat perception, for the ICBM program has been under way since the late 1960s, and it is quite unlikely that China can begin a rapid production and deployment of these systems in the near future.
Not only do Chinese public analyses view the Soviet threat as a long-term problem rather than an immediate threat, there is also the question of what kind of threat the Chinese anticipate. Again, in spite of the arguments presented in the latter stages of the defense debate, there is no evidence in the public analyses presented in the last two years that a Russian blitzkrieg across the Sino-Soviet and Mongolian borders is of major concern to Beijing. Certainly the degree of concern was insufficient to deter a three-week incursion by the PLA into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), a Soviet client. Rather, by 1978 and continuing today, public analyses focus on the alleged attempt by the U.S.S.R. to outflank the West, cut off supplies of energy and raw materials to Western Europe, the United States, and Japan, and strategically isolate the Western alliance.
Referring to the grand design underlying Soviet political-military strategy, a recent Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) analysis argues that while 75 percent of all Soviet forces are deployed to threaten Europe, since the middle 1970s "the Soviets have been carrying out frenzied expansion at an extremely rapid pace on the fringe of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East."7 The analysis concludes that if this Soviet strategy should succeed and the U.S.S.R. gain control of the Middle East, Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia, and the Malacca Strait, then the global political-military strategy of the U.S.S.R. would be essentially completed. Xinhua (New China News Agency), a few days earlier, had presented the same analysis, concluding that if the U.S.S.R. is successful in gaining control of the Persian Gulf oil resources, it would reduce "Western Europe, Japan, and even the United States to a state more dead than alive."8 What is usually unspoken, however, is that this same strategy, if successful, would in effect also isolate China and render impotent Beijing’s new strategic alignment with the West and Japan. Constant urging by Beijing that the Western alliance and the Third World assume their responsibilities and actively resist the U.S.S.R. clearly serves China’s interests as much as it does those China is urging on to stronger action. It may well be that China’s belated invasion of Vietnam was designed not only to "teach Hanoi a lesson" but also to demonstrate that China was willing, wherever possible, to play its part in the tit-for-tat struggle Beijing is urging on the rest of the world.
According to the Chinese the primary Soviet threat is directed at Europe, with Asia providing only the second long-term priority in Soviet objectives. But, they insist, the military situation in both Europe and Asia is "stalemated," thus the U.S.S.R. is now seeking to "clear the strategic passageway from Central Asia southward to the Indian Ocean so as to encircle Europe from the west, threaten East Asia in the east and gradually complete the strategic deployment for seeking world hegemony."9 The movement southward into the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean area is seen as linking the outflanking of Western Europe with Soviet moves into the "heart of Asia and the Pacific." Beijing argues that Soviet emphasis on its European strategy remains, but the "geopolitical concept of Europe" now includes not only Europe but also North Africa, the Middle East, and the Persian Gulf.10
Clearly, these essays and many others written after the April 1978 coup in Afghanistan were designed to express Chinese concern over Soviet intentions beyond the immediate events in Kabul. They also expressed Chinese convictions that while the U.S.S.R. must be opposed, there was little militarily that Beijing could do. It is this latter factor, the inability of the Chinese military establishment to inhibit Soviet global military strategy, that obviously leads the Chinese leadership and their mass media to insist that the danger from the U.S.S.R. is far greater for Europe, the United States, and Japan than it is for China.11
In January of 1980 Renmin Ribao specifically reviewed Soviet military doctrine and strategy and declared that the U.S.S.R. was on the offensive and capable of projecting conventional military force on a global scale. Soviet basic military doctrine was said to be based on preemptive warfare while its strategic concerns were said to focus on developing a military capability to fight a war simultaneously on two fronts, Europe and Asia.12 The expansion of Soviet military capabilities in Asia was carefully noted, especially the increasing size and war-fighting capability of the Russian Pacific Fleet, the deployment of SS-20s, and Soviet access to air and naval facilities in Cam Ranh Bay, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City, and Haiphong. Reference was also made to a new Soviet "command organ" in the "Far East war theater," but no specific reference was made to Soviet deployments along the Sino-Soviet border and in the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR). In keeping with standard Chinese practice, the increasing military capabilities of the U.S.S.R.’s Asian deployments were seen as being directed primarily at Japan and the United States. The essay draws two conclusions: that the tactical situations in Europe and Asia are stalemated, which led to a major Soviet strategic thrust south from Central Asia designed to link Soviet military capabilities in Europe with its forces in Asia, but that even though Russian military capabilities in both Asia and Europe were increasing, it would be a mistake to overestimate Soviet military strength.13
It is this latter conclusion that merits further analysis, given the rather gloomy description of Soviet military strategy and force deployments that occupy much of Beijing’s commentaries on Moscow’s plans for the future. Reviewing the U.S.S.R.’s "southward push" in 1978, Xinhua viewed the coup in Kabul, the Soviet Union’s search for military bases at the mouth of the Red Sea, the inclusion of the SRV in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), the Russo-Vietnamese treaty of November 1978, the use of SRV military facilities by Soviet forces, and the expansion of the Soviet Pacific Fleet as momentary gains obtained "at a high price." The Xinhua report argued that Soviet behavior served only to highlight its aggression and to warn the world of its ultimate strategic objectives.14 Renmin Ribao, in its 1978 review of Soviet strategy in Asia, concluded that the U.S.S.R. did not have the capacity to achieve its objectives, arguing that Vietnam’s admission to CMEA, pressure on Warsaw Pact members to increase their military spending and provide Vietnam with greater assistance, and the use of Warsaw Pact military personnel in Africa are all indicators "of the fact that its [the U.S.S.R.’s] capacity falls far short of its ambitions."15 In November 1979, Hongqi (Red Flag) argued in the same vein that even though the factors leading to war were increasing, a third world war could still be deferred. There was a growing awareness of the worldwide threat presented by the U.S.S.R., and internal economic and political problems still plagued the Soviet Union. The fact that Moscow was forced to rely increasingly on non-Russian forces and facilities indicated that the Soviets did not have the military and economic capability to realize its ambitions: "In short, their strategic deployments for starting a war have not been completed and difficulties are increasing."16 Analyzing the 1979 expansion of the Soviet fleet in the Pacific, Beijing domestic radio concluded that the result of this expansion was basically favorable to China. Summarizing the activities of the U.S.S.R., the United States, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, the broadcast argued that "The development of the situation in the past year shows that Soviet military expansion in the Pacific region has not only aggravated the U.S.-Soviet confrontation but also activated the antihegemonist forces in the Asian and Pacific region."17
Beijing’s public response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was initially somewhat more alarmist than its end-of-the-year analyses had been a week or so before the incursion. Commentators stressed the danger of the southward strategy of the U.S.S.R., defining Soviet actions as "a major change in the world situation."18 China’s public response, nonetheless, also pointed to the political cost paid by the U.S.S.R. for its intrusion into Kabul’s factional politics. Xinhua called for unity in opposition to the U.S.S.R. and argued that "The vehement worldwide reaction against it [the U.S.S.R.] in the past five weeks is actually a manifestation of this unity. Such reaction and unity have surprised the Soviets who are made to pay for their miscalculations."19 By the summer of 1980, Chinese radio and press analyses had essentially returned to the more hopeful note sounded in the end-of-the-year reports of 1978 and 1979. The Soviet movement into Afghanistan was viewed as almost a positive event because it had, in Beijing’s public view, alerted the world to the real danger presented by the U.S.S.R. and verified in the clearest possible manner Chinese interpretations of Soviet global objectives. Renmin Ribao stated that the "100,000-strong Soviet occupation army is being beaten everywhere and taxed to exhaustion." In Kampuchea the Vietnamese forces were facing a similar fate, and "Having shown clearly their features as hegemonists, the Soviet Union and the Vietnamese authorities have met with powerful international condemnation and are almost completely isolated. Domestically they are faced with great difficulties and have aroused opposition from their people."20 Warning was given, however, not to be fooled by a "peace offensive" and "false détente." If Soviet and Vietnamese achievements are accepted as a fait accompli, then "the Soviet Union will complete its global strategic deployment and the Western countries will then be in an awkward predicament.21
Very clearly, the Chinese seek publicly to minimize the particular threat the U.S.S.R. presents to China, choosing to emphasize the threat Soviet strategy presents to Western Europe, the United States, and Japan. Even in its analyses of Soviet military strategy in Asia, Beijing underplays the potential threat to China and stresses instead the threat the U.S.S.R. is now presenting to the forward deployed forces of the United States and to Japan’s sea lanes and territorial integrity. Noting that the strategic geography of the West Pacific is not favorable to the Soviet fleet because it is subject to blockade in Japan’s Tsushima, Tsugaru, and Soya Straits, Chinese commentators have stressed that the northern islands of Japan claimed and occupied by the U.S.S.R. are being turned into military bases and that the Soviets have linked these bases to Vladivostok "to form a huge military base network in the Far East."22 China publicly argues:
Some people point out that this [Soviet global strategy] is intended to encircle China. Of course, the Kremlin has China in mind in pushing expansionism in Asia. But its more important objective is to expand its sphere of influence and rid the continent of the United States, its chief opponent, thereby threatening [the] peace and security of Japan and other Asian nations in particular. It is indeed short-sighted and dangerous to overlook this.23
Chinese sensitivity to charges that their analyses are primarily self-serving and do not reflect the leadership’s perception of the Soviet threat are demonstrated by this comment, but it does not answer the basic question: To what extent do Chinese pronouncements, whether through the mass media, in public speeches, or through interviews given by members of the Chinese leadership to foreign press representatives, reflect actual threat perception? A partial answer, or at least an indicator, may be found in reviewing Chinese statements that reflect issues of military doctrine and strategy.
Military force structures of the size and complexity developed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are not created accidentally. Force structures emerge based on the interaction of a number of variables. Three critical variables are: the perceived threat(s) to be countered and the military objectives sought; the resources and industrial capabilities available and allocated to national defense; and the doctrine and strategy developed to counter the threat(s) with the current and anticipated force structure. At any given time no single one of these factors may be dominant. The force structure that emerges is a result of the interplay of all three factors.
The force structure in existence at the time of the 1976-78 defense debate was largely a function of Lin Biao’s attempt to build a modern defense establishment, but one built within doctrinal, strategic, economic, and industrial constraints that had severely restricted the substance of the force. It should be recalled, for example, that between 1959 and 1971, the primary threat to China shifted from the United States to the U.S.S.R. Such a shift radically changed the kind of threats faced by the PRC and, therefore, the kind of force structure necessary to meet the threat. Similarly, while Chinese weapon systems and equipment changed little from designs of the 1940s and 1950s, the weapons and equipment of their primary adversaries not only changed but the battlefield environment changed as a function of modern military technology. The debate of 1976-78 demonstrated how sensitive the Chinese military-industrial establishment is to these changes and their implications for the PLA’s war-fighting capabilities.
The general purpose forces inherited and developed by Lin Biao enabled China to adopt a dual strategy of local force projection and a classic Maoist people’s war to underpin China’s basic military doctrine of deterrence. Two "traditions" were brought into play. On the one hand there was the successful conduct of Mao’s people’s war strategy in the 1930s and 1940s and the shift to conventional warfare in 1948; on the other there was the bitter experience of the Korean War. In Korea, Chinese forces experienced for the first time modern warfare as it is fought by rich and technologically advanced societies. The dual concepts of mobility and lethality in a force structure were impressed on the Chinese by the failure of Peng Dehuai’s forces to destroy the United States 8th Army in January-March 1951 and the number of dead and wounded this failure cost them.
The lessons learned during and from the Korean War battlefields were undoubtedly critical in the decisions that led to the intensive modernization of the PLA and the development of China’s defense industries in the years following the war. The economic cost of a doctrine, strategy, and force structure modeled on the Soviet armed forces, and Mao’s objection to the strategies pursued to employ this force structure, led to the first major defense modernization debates of 1955 and 1959. Of the two traditions—people’s war and the Korean War—Peng Dehuai and those who supported him chose to emphasize the latter. When Lin Biao took command, he was charged with creating a strategy and force structure more compatible with the views of Mao Zedong and with modernizing this force structure within a limited, but not niggardly, budget. In this he was remarkably successful.
By the late 1960s, however, the weaknesses of China’s R&D base and defense industries were having their effect. China’s adversaries were rapidly developing their military technology, and it was clearly questionable whether size could continue to substitute for mobility and lethality. With the death of Mao, a debate over the modernization of China’s armed forces burst into the open once more, although there were indications in the spring and summer of 1971, and with the purge of Deng Xiaoping in 1976, that a conflict over the resources to be allocated to the defense establishment remained an issue. With Mao’s death, however, basic issues of doctrine, strategy, and resource allocation could be debated without being totally restrained by the theology of a people’s war.
In terms of weapon platforms, weapon systems, and equipment at both the conventional and nuclear level, the military establishment, including the R&D and industrial facilities, made itself clear. In their view, the equipment and weapons of the PLA were woefully inadequate. Capping the demand for hardware modernization were demands that the PLA had also to modernize its methods of war fighting—those methods which had served it so well in the 1930s and 1940s were no longer effective against its contemporary adversaries. So, too, had China changed, and whereas it was once feasible to disregard the cities and gain the strategic and tactical flexibility of operating in China’s vast hinterland, it became important to defend cities as centers of politics and industrial production. The new clarion cry was to be able to fight a "people’s war under modern conditions," and the new PLA was to be a "tiger with wings."
The external impact of the internal debate was bolstered by Chinese officials visiting the factories of West European arms manufacturers, air shows, and exhibitions of weapons and equipment designed to show the world the latest in commercially available military technology. To the outside world, China often seemed on the verge of another massive program of defense technology imports, similar to the period 1953-60. Nothing like this occurred. The Hot, Milan, Crotale, and other precision-guided munitions (PGMs) remained in the manufacturers’ inventories along with their- production technology. The Harrier V/STOL, the Mirage 2000, the Leopard tank, and many other weapon platforms viewed by the Chinese have yet to be purchased, and their expensive production technologies remain unlicensed to China It is against this somewhat confusing background that an analysis of China’s current view of its doctrine, strategy, and force structure has to take place. The interests and desires of the Chinese defense establishment were overtly stated from 1976 through 1978, but little of this desire was satisfied from 1978 through 1980. Why? Cost—the defense burden assumed by the Chinese economy—is obviously very important, but cost alone does not provide a very complete answer. Doctrine and strategy in the face of severe economic constraints and in the context of a particular perception of China’s security needs can provide a more complete response.
It is quite evident that the current Chinese leadership has publicly adopted the view that there is no immediate or short-term threat of major proportions to the territorial integrity of the PRC. It views its overall national security policy, based upon Beijing’s realignment of its strategic relationship to the West and Japan, as offsetting the military superiority of the U.S.S.R. Such an evaluation of China’s national security environment was reflected in a major review of China’s defense modernization program published in 1979. This review to China’s defense policy by the minister of national defense, Xu Xiangqian, had to constitute the dominant view of the Chinese leadership, although not necessarily that of all the senior members of the defense establishment. It was a carefully constructed analysis, describing a wide range of defense modernization issues and the response the leadership was making to these issues.24 Asserting that defense modernization "is a task of major strategic significance,"25 Xu then proceeded to place defense modernization in precisely the same context that Beijing’s public analyses of China’s national security established by stating that it "will greatly add to the forces combating hegemonism and defending world peace . . ."26 China’s defense modernization was placed in a collective context, emphasizing its contribution to resisting the U.S.S.R. rather than any unique aspects the Chinese contribution might have. Xu’s next major point was to place the modernization of national defense into the current structure of economic priorities, reasserting China’s policy that defense modernization has to be preceded by the overall development of the national economy, adding that "blindly pursuing large-scale high speed development in building national defense will invariably and seriously hinder the development of the national economy and harm the base of the defense industry."27
Accordingly, the modernization of national defense has to occur within a particular defense strategy, and the modernization of weapons and equipment will be ineffective unless the PLA leadership creates an officer corps and manpower base capable of developing and applying strategy and tactics relevant to modern warfare. Xu was quite open about the PLA’s many weaknesses, restating the positions voiced in many end-of-the-year training reports from the military regions (MRs) that the PLA must plan to fight with the weapons and equipment currently in its inventory. Xu observes
If we treat and command a modern war in the way we commanded war during the 1930s and 1940s, we are bound to meet with a big rebuff and suffer serious defeat. We have seen many incidents in the history of war in which an army was defeated, not because its weapons were poor, but because its commander had backward military thinking and directed operations in the wrong way.28
Xu argued that in the modernization of the armed forces, education and training are the "central task," for "the target of the attack, the scale of war and even the method of fighting are new to us."29 The PLA, according to Xu and perhaps reflecting the recent campaign in Vietnam, "cannot meet the demands of modern war. There are many questions concerning the use of modern weapons, the organization of joint operations and bringing the various armed forces in full play."30 Perhaps to compensate for the strong indications that the PLA will not be receiving any modern military technology for quite a while, Xu chose to emphasize the weakness of the PLA in conducting a campaign on the modern battlefield rather than the weaknesses of weapons and equipment. This should not be underemphasized, though, for modern military technology is complex, often difficult to maintain, and requires extensive training and preparation before it can be used to its fullest extent. The Chinese armed forces are in no way prepared to deploy these modern technologies, and the issues of educational levels, familiarity with the technologies, and fighting and conducting a campaign on a modern battlefield are major issues to be addressed.
The issue of weaponry and equipment assumes an almost secondary position in Xu’s analysis, but he states that the weapons to be acquired will be selected to complement China’s basic military doctrine of deterrence and the strategies adopted to support the doctrine.31 Perhaps to warn the military establishment against demanding too much, Xu states that the weapons developed by the U.S.S.R. were to support the Soviet policy of a "strategic offensive," whereas Chinese weapons were to support a defensive strategy. Because the strategy of the Chinese is different from that of the U.S.S.R., so its weapons will be different. In the balance between conventional and nuclear weapons, conventional weapons will be emphasized. When contemplating investment in "existing" and "new-type" weapons, China will first "improve existing weaponry and increase its battle efficiency," while at the same time it will "strive to develop scientific research in national defense so this research can anticipate the defense industry."32 In spite of statements indicating support for reequipping the PLA "in a considerable short period, Xu’s emphasis is placed on future developments in the defense industry and on China’s need both to design and manufacture its own weapons. This statement, which is repeated, seems to be a signal to the defense establishment not to anticipate major advances in its weapons and equipment through a massive technology transfer from Western defense industries in a manner similar to the importation of Soviet military technology between 1953 and 1960.
The emphasis on the need both to design and manufacture weapons reflects an awareness that without indigenous design capabilities, China’s future weapons, if they rely solely on the importation of foreign production technology, may stagnate around designs and technologies of the 1970s as they have around designs and technologies of the 1950s. In the long run, developing the capability to design weapons as well as their production technology is far more critical than simply the ability to run foreign production lines. Given China’s experience with reverse-engineering Soviet weapons and equipment, it is quite likely that this lesson was learned the hard way. No doubt there are many in the defense establishment who, although appreciative of the basic strength involved in adopting the policy presented by Xu, question whether the PLA has the time to devote to this long-run approach to weapons acquisition.
Xu was not specific about the kinds of weapons the Chinese would develop, beyond observing that these weapons must be developed "in a planned way"33 and must fit two major characteristics of China’s defense problems. The threat to China’s security comes from adversaries widely separated by China’s distant borders. These adversaries vary in their capabilities, and the potential combat areas vary in their geography and climate—no doubt referring to the Soviet and Vietnamese border areas. Thus, Xu concludes: "The armed forces in different areas have different combat tasks and different targets of attack. We must design and manufacture weapons useful in different conditions."34 National defense strategy must, Xu argues, take into account the varying combat tasks faced by the forces deployed against two distinctly different battlefield environments.35 Weapons, equipment, force structure, and training in preparation for combat against the highly mechanized tank and artillery-heavy Soviet forces on the plains, deserts, and mountains of northern China will be quite different from fighting in the mountainous jungles of northern Vietnam and southwest China. Air force requirements will also differ, given the capabilities of Soviet Frontal Aviation in the north and the more limited, but still competent, air forces of the SRV. There seems to be a distinct warning from the minister of national defense that there can be no monolithic plan for the modernization of the PLA and that the nature of the Soviet military threat should not dominate force structure and training requirements—a warning no doubt recalled after the ambiguous military results of the PLA’s campaign in Vietnam.
Inevitably, the particular war-fighting strategy in which the transition to a more modernized PLA was to occur was described by Xu as a people’s war. Nonetheless, it must be noted that since winning the civil war, all combat operations undertaken by the PLA in support of China’s security policies have taken place outside the commonly accepted political borders of the PRC. Granted, force projection has been carefully limited and controlled, but, given a choice, the strategy chosen has involved deploying Chinese forces outside the political boundaries of the PRC, in Korea, India, and Vietnam. The PLA, although trained and indoctrinated in the principles of Maoist people’s war, has in fact not fought such a war since 1947-48. This is not to say that a people’s war has not been the foundation of China’s basic military doctrine of deterrence but rather to suggest that any basic military doctrine will involve a number of deployment and warfighting strategies that will vary according to the nature of the perceived military threat and the capabilities of one’s own forces. To deter a superpower adversary from seriously contemplating the choice of seizing and holding large segments of Chinese territory, the capability to fight a people’s war constitutes a major deterrent. But as the force structure of the PLA became a more flexible military instrument, so a number of strategies designed to meet a variety of threats and to support a greater number of policy options became plausible. Thus intensive PLA activity in the northern part of Vietnam and southwest China between 1964 and 1966 as China prepared and improved air defense, logistic, and support facilities was in sharp contrast to the lack of preparation prior to Chinese forces’ crossing the Yalu River in 1950. In the years 1964-66, the Chinese were building roads, strengthening bridges, constructing support facilities, and making preparations for a coordinated air defense system with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). Such efforts obviously enabled the Chinese to give more effective support to the DRV, but these same preparations would have served Chinese units equally well if the decision had been made to deploy extensive combat forces into the U.S.-Vietnamese conflict.36 Of course, such preparations were not possible in 1950, but if Beijing was contemplating heavy PLA involvement in the Indochina War, then it was prepared to deploy those forces with a competent air defense and logistic support system. It is quite possible that the actions taken in 1964-66 reflect the lessons learned from the Korean experience.
In this context, Xu’s comments on a people’s war take on a more realistic note. He talks of the necessity to study foreign wars and the evolution of military thinking and "seriously sum up our army’s experience . . . In particular, we must seriously and actively study the enemy, take the actual condition of the enemy and ourselves into consideration and find out the laws for directing a people’s war under present-day conditions."37 Given the content of the military modernization debate of 1976-78 and the claimed rejection of a people’s war as it was fought in the 1930s and 1940s, the conceptualization of a people’s war under modern conditions requires a review of what such a war-fighting strategy may mean to the current Chinese military leadership, most of whom fought in the wars with the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Japanese. First, as noted above, as a fall-back position the principles of a people’s war are clearly applicable today. The real dilemma for Chinese military planners, however, is that neither the Soviets nor the Vietnamese either collectively or individually, contemplate conquering and occupying China. Soviet forces deployed in Central Asia and the Far East do not have the capability to occupy and hold vast tracts of Chinese territory—a military fact the Chinese themselves refer to constantly. Put simply, what happens if the Chinese hold a people’s war and nobody comes?
The most immediate and serious threat to China remains the Soviet deployment along the border, especially across from north China and around Manchuria. The current Chinese force deployment indicates that if the U.S.S.R. were to resort to a punitive attack with no intention of moving as far south as Shenyang, then Chinese forces do not have the capability to prevent a Soviet occupation, probably temporary, of northern Manchuria down to Harbin, for example. Resorting to strategic warfare would be disastrous. Thus it would be advantageous to the Chinese to present a deterrent capability based on conventional forces to prevent a limited Soviet incursion. Xu’s analysis does not enter into any specifics of future Chinese strategy, but there are commentaries by other Chinese military officials that do offer some clues to the Chinese border defense strategy.
Wu Xiuquan, a deputy chief of staff, in conversations with a French military delegation led by General André Marty, observed that in the event of a Soviet attack the Chinese would not attempt to defend the entire border. "We have chosen to defend a certain number of key points along the border and inside the country. We would use our mobile warfare to draw enemy forces onto battlefields of our own choosing."38 In another conversation, this time with Japanese journalists in Beijing, Wu commented that China would not start the war, implying that this was because the PLA’s arms and equipment were ten years behind those of the Soviet forces. He did, however, offer the opinion that the main threat to China came from Soviet ground and air forces; therefore, the modernization of the PLA’s ground and air forces would be emphasized rather than strategic weapons.39 In both conversations, though, Wu Xiuquan emphasized that a people’s war would constitute China’s primary strategy in opposing the U.S.S.R. These and other conversations with senior Chinese military officials lead to the conclusion that current Chinese military planning is directed at creating an appropriate "mix" between a strategy of people’s war and more conventional war-fighting strategies where the objective is to destroy the adversary’s capability to continue the war.
It must be recalled that the PLA does not claim to be a modern force and that the "new" strategy being discussed is not, in fact, new. It is a continuation of an approach to war fighting that was adopted by Lin Biao when he was charged with redesigning the PLA after the conflict with those in the military establishment who, after the Korean War, were seeking to model the PLA on the Soviet armed forces. What the PLA lacked then and lacks now to a far greater degree are the weapons and equipment necessary to conduct successful military operations on a modern battlefield. Peng Dehuai’s solution had been to model the PLA on the Soviet armed forces. Lin’s approach was to adapt the PLA’s past war-fighting strategies to an anticipated but slow modernization of the force structure. The question then, as now, was how to fight with the current inventory and at the same time plan for the extensive deployment of modern weapons throughout the service arms and branches of the PLA. Lin chose to reemphasize the traditional force structure of the PLA with its division into the main forces, local forces, and the Primary Armed Militia—which we shall refer to as the militia. Main force units consisted of the bulk of the PLA’s "heavy" ground force divisions and most of the air and naval forces. These forces formed the strategic maneuvering elements of the PLA and were to bear the brunt of containing and then destroying invading enemy forces. If the enemy forces could not be contained, then the main force units would move away until conditions favorable for a counterattack were created.
The second component of the armed forces, the regional or "local" forces, were composed of relatively "light," independent ground force divisions and regiments. Their primary combat role was to stay in the local area and conduct irregular and guerrilla warfare designed to attrit the adversary and weaken his ability to conduct combat operations. In this role they were assisted by the Primary Armed Militia. This relationship between the regional forces and the militia was formalized by making the regional forces responsible for the training of the militia in peacetime. An additional role of the regional forces and the militia was to replenish the main forces and regional forces when either battlefield attrition or the need to expand combat operations made replacement or enhancement necessary.
This basic design, discussed here in a rather oversimplified fashion, has been the primary organizational principle of the PLA since the late 1930s. Lin adjusted the principle to apply to a more modernized PLA, but its principles remained fixed, for they could support a variety of strategies, including local force projection. The Chinese insist that the same organizational concept can be used with great effectiveness today in a defensive war against the Soviet Union. Since the decision has been made to reequip the PLA only slowly, the development of battlefield tactics to support a modern people’s war becomes very important, and the application of the three-layered force structure to the overall strategy needs to be reviewed. One of the earliest detailed discussions of the "new" approach to people’s war was presented by Nie Rongzhen in his speech to the National Militia Conference in August 1978.40 The speech is of special interest because Nie has been closely associated with military R&D and was for many years the director of the National Defense Scientific and Technological Commission (NDSTC), therefore placing him squarely in the "modernizers" camp. Perhaps equally important, the militia are symbolic of Mao’s mass mobilization concepts, which are at the core of the principles of people’s war. By outlining the role of the militia in a people’s war under modern conditions, Nie has to look at the entire strategy and structure of the people’s war. Finally, the outline presented by Nie has remained intact over the last two years, indicating that by the time he presented his views the war-fighting strategy of the PLA had been established.
Nie makes no bones about the source of the threat to China. He states that the U.S.S.R. "is bent on subjugating China. . . .It is our most dangerous enemy."41 He realistically describes Soviet strategy as being based on a sudden attack armed with both technologically advanced conventional and nuclear weapons. Using their tactics of combined arms warfare, the U.S.S.R. will "attack and penetrate deeply," using large numbers of tanks and mechanized forces in coordination with air attacks, airborne assaults, and naval forces. The scale and attrition associated with such an assault will be much greater than any China has faced in the past,42 and when such a war begins, China’s forces will have to be deployed quickly to blunt the attack and disrupt or crush it. The cost will be high, and a major function of the militia will be to replenish the regular forces of the PLA,43 presumably both the main and regional forces. Nie’s description was grim but hardly understated.
As Nie analyzes the role of the militia in this future war, it becomes evident that it will function in the future pretty much as it has in the past. The militia will conduct guerrilla operations behind Russian lines, where it will use its intimate knowledge of the local terrain to assist it in attacking and harassing communications centers, military installations, logistic support lines, etc. Its primary strategic function will be to assist the regional forces in the creation of conditions favorable for the main forces to "annihilate the enemy as they advance."44 The major point of weakness for the Soviet forces, Nie maintains, is their dependence on tanks and mechanized units for their rapid advance into China. He refers to the tank and mechanized units of the Soviet forces as their "tortoise shells," and "without their ‘tortoise shells’ they cannot do much. Our enemies feel reassured by their modernization and mechanization. In fact, as men must eat, machines must ‘eat’ too."45 Nie argues that as they advance into China’s territory, it will become increasingly difficult for the Soviets to keep their armored and mechanized forces supplied with parts, fuel, and ammunition against carefully organized and aggressive guerrilla warfare. It is this action that will weaken the Soviet attack in preparation for its final destruction by the main forces.
There is much in Nie’s speech that could simply be regarded as making the best out of a bad situation, but training reports from the military regions suggest that the PLA is following through on the basic concepts described by Nie and the weaknesses of the PLA analyzed by Xu Xiangqian in 1979. The main and regional forces, according to these reports, are conducting exercises designed to correct the PLA’s weaknesses in combined arms operations, logistic support functions, battlefield communications, and staff headquarters training. A report from the Lanzhou Military Region described what has to be a common problem when it said that all of its officers had prior combat experience, "But how to command a battle under modern conditions was a new subject for them to study."46 All of the exercises reported contained the common theme of the need to improve the battlefield effectiveness of current weapons and equipment by developing battlefield tactics that will offset the advantages of the adversary. This same theme was repeated almost as often for the air and naval forces as it was for ground units. All of this may make the PLA a more competent battlefield force, but it does not make it a modern force. The selection of a people’s war, even under so-called modern conditions, is a strategy of weakness rather than a strategy of strength. To this extent the role of the militia as defined by Nie Rongzhen is of interest.
The history of the militia since 1950 has been spotty at best,47 but since 1978 increasing attention has been paid to its organization, weapons, and equipment, and its strategic and tactical role in people’s war. The Primary Armed Militia is reportedly in the process of being armed, equipped, and to some extent organized as a replica of the regional forces, especially in the north and in China’s larger cities. Urban militia units are increasingly reported as being armed and trained with antiaircraft artillery (AAA)48 and a wide range of infantry weapons as well as being structured into communications, reconnaissance, anti-atomic, biological, and chemical warfare units, and antitank units. Such an upgrading of the militia would make it a more competent force and thus more capable of fleshing out regional force units. With the militia, as with the regular armed forces, the overall objective is to make it a more competent war-fighting force without a massive transfusion of technologically advanced equipment.
If a people’s war under modern conditions is what it appears to be and is not a radical change from the military strategy adopted by Lin Biao, then China’s basic doctrine and strategy for deterring the U.S.S.R., and for defending against a Soviet attack should deterrence fail have not changed.
To deter means to reduce the incentive to attack. The Chinese have included an estimate of the entire strategic environment of the U.S.S.R. in establishing their strategy of deterrence and have concluded that the United States and its allies have currently stalemated any major military actions the Soviet Union may seek to make in the European or Asian theaters. The Middle East and Southwest Asia may yet remain a question in Beijing, but the basic strategic balance does not appear immediately threatening to China. The second major facet of a deterrence strategy, in addition to reducing the incentive to attack, is to affect the adversary’s perception of the risks involved in not attacking.49 If the risk involved in not attacking is high, then the incentive to attack is correspondingly higher. Since China does not have the capability in its missile force to launch a disarming first strike on the U.S.S.R.’s strategic weapons, and Beijing’s conventional forces do not have the capability for a successful assault on the Soviet Union, then Soviet perceptions of the risk involved in not striking cannot be high. Possibly the small deployment of Chinese multiple-stage intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), which give China a limited capability to strike the western U.S.S.R., raises Soviet concern, but the deployment remains small, and ICBM deployment has yet to begin.
At this juncture it is possible for a destabilizing interaction to occur between future Chinese nuclear weapons deployment and Soviet concern—that is, Soviet perception of the risk involved in not striking could increase. China’s public statements, which constantly reiterate "no first use" pledges and emphasize that future strategic weapons deployments will remain small, may well be designed in part to lower Russian fears. Similarly, the official strategy of a people’s war under modern conditions and a policy of only slowly increasing the mobility and lethality of the Chinese armed forces are clear indicators that the basic military strategy of the Chinese armed forces is defensive.
The problem for Chinese planners in analyzing their strategic relationship with the U.S.S.R. is to determine what level or threshold they can achieve without creating an incentive for the U.S.S.R. to consider seriously a preemptive attack at the conventional or nuclear level. I cannot state with any high level of confidence what the Chinese believe this level to be, nor can one know what this threshold is for Soviet planners. Indeed, whether the U.S.S.R. launches a conventional, nuclear, or mixed assault on China may have less to do with any perceived military balance than with other long-term Soviet objectives—one of which may be to avoid a strategic nuclear exchange or conventional conflict with China for as long as possible.50
Against this background, a people’s war under modern conditions continues to provide a rational basis for conventional deterrence of the U.S.S.R. It is a suitable strategy for the weapons and equipment currently deployed by the PLA, and it "fits" with the PLA’s past experience in defensive warfare against an adversary in China. The U.S.S.R.’s present problems in Afghanistan are almost certainly being seen in China as proof’ of the viability of their military logic. The primary and obvious weakness of the people’s war concept is that it does not provide China with the capability to conduct modern, highly intensive combat operations within a limited geographical area. This weakness leaves the Chinese border with the U.S.S.R. and Mongolia exposed to limited Soviet incursion designed not to conquer China but to influence its behavior. This weakness may well become a serious dilemma for the Chinese leadership.
In February 1979, China decided that a limited incursion into Vietnam would not result in a major Soviet strike into China. While military operations in Vietnam were under way, Deng Xiaoping was interviewed by the Japanese press and asked why he did not expect a Soviet attack on China in retaliation. Deng replied that China had made preparations for a possible Soviet attack and was willing to take a reasonable risk. He emphasized that Chinese actions were known to be limited and that the fighting would not last long, therefore, he believed the risk of Soviet intervention was minimal.51 A little more than a year later, Deng admitted in another interview that the act of "touching the tiger’s arise" did cause considerable apprehension among the Chinese leadership.52 In these interviews Deng demonstrates that the Chinese are extremely sensitive to the border and the use of military force in coercive diplomacy. Currently, a major factor in the credibility of China’s public commitment to Thailand rests on Beijing’s willingness to attack Vietnam in the face of Soviet deployments along China’s northern border. A second attack on Vietnam, however, may well push Soviet tolerance of Beijing’s coercion of Hanoi to its outer limits. No doubt those in China who determine China’s deterrent strategy against the SRV see Beijing’s official statements of support and warning as but part of the political pressures involved in coercive diplomacy, but Chinese defense planners have to prepare for combat operations in support of China’s regional security policies. If the Chinese leadership believes, as they evidently do, that the PLA’s military operations in Vietnam had not gone too well, even though the short-term political results were favorable,53 then military operations against Soviet forces would almost certainly fare worse. Thus, in using military force as an instrument of coercive diplomacy, weapons and equipment capable of conducting a successful strategy of people’s war do not grant the capability required for successful military operations of limited scope and high intensity.
Earlier it was suggested that force structures emerge as the result of the interaction of three major variables: the perceived threats to be countered and the military objectives sought; the resources available and allocated to defense; and the doctrine and strategy developed to employ the existing and anticipated force structure. Chinese analyses of their threat environment suggested that Beijing did not view the U.S.S.R. as a major short-term threat to China. A review of recent defense policy statements indicated that here, too, even though there was a perceived threat to China, it did not require a massive and expensive transfer of defense technology from the West to beef-up the PLA’s capability to defend against a major Soviet intrusion into Chinese territory. More to the point, senior Chinese military officials agreed publicly that the PLA as well as the economy would be better served by a gradual and systematic integration of advanced military technology when and as the defense industries were capable of absorbing it and the armed forces were capable of deploying and maintaining this technology. A people’s war under modern conditions utilizing modified battlefield tactics and incorporating more advanced military technologies as they were introduced would provide a transitional defense strategy capable of contributing to the deterrence of the U.S.S.R., especially when this strategy was compatible with a minimal nuclear deterrent.
The dilemma for Chinese defense planning, however, comes not with devising a deterrence strategy and war-fighting capability designed to raise the cost to the U.S.S.R. of seizing and holding large areas of Chinese territory but with developing a force structure capable of deterring or defeating a far more limited incursion into China and of being used to support policies of coercive diplomacy. The Chinese have made coercive diplomacy a component of their national security policy, using it with varying degrees of success in Korea in 1950, against India in 1962, against the United States in 1964-66 through military preparations in Vietnam and southwest China, and against Vietnam in 1979. Now, for the first time, China is facing a situation where its regional interests are being actively opposed by a client of the U.S.S.R. Thus, any military action taken by Beijing in support of a strategy of coercive diplomacy runs the risk of direct Soviet intervention.
Under these conditions it appears that China’s regional policies as they are now being developed are coming into potential conflict with the policy for a long-term process of military modernization. This conflict is essentially one of short-term military requirements versus long-term planning for a self-sustaining defense industry. China’s current defense dilemma is remarkably similar to India’s after the disastrous border war with China in the fall of 1962.54 India, as did China after the Korean War, initially sought the ability to design and manufacture its own weapons rather than rely on foreign sources. Following the border war with China, New Delhi separated the long-term goal of developing an indigenous design and manufacturing capability from the short-term objective of upgrading, the lethality of its armed forces. By 1964, five-year defense plans were paralleling and coordinated with the five-year plans for the civil sector of the economy while India sought to balance its long-term defense needs with the more immediate issues of the Chinese to the north and Pakistan to the west and east. India continues to import defense technologies under license, and its armed forces, although much smaller than China’s, deploy more advanced weapon systems and equipment. With the exception of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, India’s defense industries are producing military equipment currently beyond China’s capabilities.
The parallel with India must not be overdrawn, for whereas the Western powers and especially the U.S.S.R. were willing to cooperate with India in its defense programs, China has yet to find a replacement for the Soviet Union as a source of military technology, although the United States government has lifted the embargo on munitions items to the People’s Republic of China and will consider, on a case by case basis, sale of arms to China. The European governments appear to be constrained by Soviet pressure. Thus, even if China should choose to modify its current policies and seek a limited reequipment of its forces with selected weaponry, there may well be external political factors as well as financial problems that would make such a policy difficult to implement. Nonetheless, the option to mix long-and short-term modernization strategies exists, and the Indian example of an apparently successful application of a mixed strategy offers some evidence of its viability. Similarly, the three-tiered organizational structure of the PLA would permit reequipping selected main force units without necessarily implying a total refit of the armed forces. Thus, the current policy of defense modernization should not be viewed as necessarily unchangeable due to the severe economic restraints under which it must take place. Rather, careful observations must be made of Chinese analyses of the regional threats to its security, recognizing that Beijing does have the option to mix its force modernization strategies.
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Notes
1. Among the many recent publications are: Paul H. B. Godwin, "China’s Defense Dilemma: The Modernization Crisis of 1976-1977," Contemporary China, Fall 1978, pp. 63-86; Jonathan D. Pollack, Defense Modernization in the People’s Republic of China, Rand Note No. N-121-l-AF (Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation, October 1979); Francis J. Romance, "The Modernization of China’s Armed Forces," Asian Survey, March 1980, pp. 298-310; David L. Shambaugh, "Military Modernization and the Politics of Technology Transfer," Contemporary China, Fall 1979, pp. 3-13.
2. Romance, p. 304.
3. National Foreign Assessment Center, China: The Continuing Search for a Modernization Strategy (CIA ER 80-10248, April 1980), p. 5.
4. Interview with an unidentified PLA official at the Ministry of National Defense, reported in Yomiuri Shimbun, 29 March 1980, p. 7.
5. Ronald G. Mitchell and Edward P. Parris, "Chinese Defense Spending, 1965-1978," Joint Economic Committee, Allocation of Resources in the Soviet Union and China—1979 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1979), p. 71.
6. Pollack, "The Implications of Sino-American Normalization," International Security, Spring 1979, p. 40.
7. Observer’s article, "Critical Choice," Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), 19 June 1980, p. 6, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, People’s Republic of China, 20 June 1980, p. Cl. Hereafter referred to as FBIS-PRC.
8. Peng Di: "Equidistant Diplomacy," Xinhua (New China News Agency), 11 June 1980, FBIS-PRC, 12 June 1980, p. B1.
9. "Talk from the Forum on International Events Program," Beijing Domestic Service, 1 February 1980, FBIS-PRC, 5 February 1980, p. C2.
10. Ibid., p. C4.
11. See, for example, Deng Xiaoping’s interview on West German television, 13 May 1980, reported in FBIS-PRC, 14 May 1980, p. A3.
12. Special Commentator: "The Military Strategy of the Soviet Union for World Domination," Renmin Ribao, 11 January 1980, p. 7, FBIS-PRC, 15 January 1980, p. C4.
13. Ibid., p. C6.
14. Commentary: "Kremlin Pushes Southward in 1978," Beijing, Xinhua, 29 December 1978, FBIS-PRC, 2 January 1979, p. A13.
15. Commentator article: "The Social-Imperialist Strategy in Asia," Renmin Ribao, 30 December 1978, FBIS-PRC, 2 January 1979, p. A13.
16. Commentator: "The Current Danger of War and the Defense of World Peace," Hongqi (Red Flag), 2 November 1979, pp. 53-58, FBIS-PRC, 27 November 1979, p. A6.
17. Talk on Current Events: "The Soviet Union Steps up Military Expansion in the Pacific Region," Beijing Domestic Service, 3 December 1979, FBIS-PRC, vol. 1, no. 237, pp. C1-C2.
18. Talk from Forum on International Events Program, p. C3.
19. "Broader Front with Same Tilt," Beijing, Xinhua, 3 February 1980, FBIS-PRC, 5 February 1980, p. C5.
20. "Critical Choice," p. Cl.
21. Ibid.
22. "The Soviet Union Steps up Military Expansion in the Pacific Region," p. Cl.
23. "The Social-Imperialist Strategy in Asia," p. A13.
24. Xu Xiangqian: "Strive to Achieve Modernization in National Defense—in Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China," Hongqi, No. 10, 12 October 1979, pp. 28-33, FBIS-PRC, 18 October 1979, pp. L12-L18.
25. Ibid., p. L12.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., p. L13.
28. Ibid., p. L15.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., p. L13.
32. Ibid., pp. L13-14.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., p. L14.
35. Ibid.
36. Alan S. Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1975), pp. 170-95.
37. Xu Xiangqian, p. L16.
38. Interview with General André Marty by Georges Biannic, Agence France Presse (AFP), Hong Kong, 3 May 1979, FBIS-PRC, vol. 1, no. 088, 4 May 1979, p. G1.
39. Mainichi Shimbun, 15 July 1979, p. 2.
40. Nieh Jung-chen’s (Nie Rongzhen) 4 August speech at the National Militia Conference, Peking (Beijing), NCNA (Xinhua) Domestic Service, 7 August 1978, FBIS-PRC, 9 August 1978, pp. El-El0.
41. Ibid., p. El0.
42. Ibid., pp. E5-E6.
43. Ibid., p. E6.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid., p. E7.
46. Lanzhou, Gansu Provincial Service, 4 September 1979, FBIS-PRC, vol. 1, no. 175, 7 September 1979, p. T1.
47.JuneT. Dreyer, "The Chinese People’s Militia: Transformation and Strategic Role," a paper presented to the 32d Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Washington, D.C., 21 March 1980.
48. For example, "Shanghai Garrison Command Holds Militia Antiaircraft Artillery Work Conference," Jiefang Ribao (Liberation Daily), 24 September 1979, p. 1, FBIS-PRC, 11 October 1979, pp. 8-9.
49. Richard Rosecrance, Strategic Deterrence Reconsidered, Adelphi Paper No. 116 (London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1975), p. 23.
50. For a discussion of the parameters of deterrence beyond the military balance, see Michael Brown, "Deterrence Failures and Deterrence Strategies," The Rand Paper Series (Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation, March 1977).
51. Mainichi Shimbun, 27 February 1979, p. 4.
52. Yomiuri Shimbun, 30 March 1980, p. 3.
53. London, Reuters, 20 March 1979, FBIS-PRC, 20 March 1979, p. Ll.
54. The following discussion is drawn from Onkar Marwah, "India’s Military Power and Policy," in Onkar Marwah and Jonathan D. Pollack, editors, Military Power and Policy in Asian States (Boulder, Colorado, 1980), pp. 101-46.
Contributor
Paul H. B. Godwin (B.A., Darmouth College; M.A., Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is Associate Professor of Asian Studies at the Air University (ATC), Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He is coauthor of The Making of a Model Citizen in Communist China (1971) and a contributor to Civil-Military Relations in Communist Societies (1978). He has published articles on Chinese politics and military affairs in Studies in Comparative Communism, Contemporary China, and Comparative Politics. Dr. Godwin is a previous contributor to the Review.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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