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Whither China's Military Modernization?Kumar Singh BhartenduPublished online: 15 Jul 2008.

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Strategic Analysis, Vol. 32, No. 4, July 2008

ISSN 0970-0161 print / ISSN 1754-0054 onlineDOI: 10.1080/09700160802237046 © 2008 Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses

RSAN0970-01611754-0054Strategic Analysis, Vol. 32, No. 4, June 2008: pp. 1–11Strategic AnalysisReview Essay

Whither China’s Military Modernization?Review EssayStrategic AnalysisBhartendu Kumar Singh

Ka Po Ng, Interpreting China’s Military Power:Doctrines Makes Readiness (Frank Cass, New York, 2005).

Dennis J. Blasko, The Chinese Army Today:Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century

(Routledge, New York, 2006).

Information Office of the State Council of thePeople’s Republic of China,

China’s National Defence in 2006 (Beijing, 2006).

Paul J. Bolt and Albert S. Willner (eds.),China’s Nuclear Future (Lynne Rienner Publishers,

Boulder, Colorado, 2008).

Center for Technology and National SecurityPolicy at the National Defence University,

Coping with the Dragon: Essays on PLA Transformationand the US Military (NDU, Washington, DC, 2007).

US Department of Defence, Annual Report to the Congress:Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2008,

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/China_Military_Report_08.pdf(Accessed May 24, 2008).

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the internationalrelations discourse on issues concerning China. The world’s attention isriveted on China, partly out of genuine curiosity about its dramaticeconomic transformation and partly because the major players areconcerned about the rise of China in the strategic domain. In some waysChina appears to have replaced the USSR as the enemy of the West, more

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particularly the United States. Whether in academic circles or diplomaticcorridors, the overriding debate is not about whether China will emerge asanother superpower, but what kind of superpower it will be. While Chinahas repeatedly sought to impress on the outside world an image of peacefultransformation, the other political actors, especially the United States, havesought to portray it in threatening terms. China’s unwillingness to transformits polity, the perceived lack of transparency in the defence expenditure, andmilitary doctrine are fuelling suspicions in the region and in the world.

Ever since 1979, China has set itself on a slow but realistic path of mili-tary modernization. The initial impetus came from the China’s Vietnamdebacle in that year. This was further aided by the spectacular economicgrowth, the end of the Cold War, China’s concerns over Taiwan, and thebroader geo-strategic context. Although China viewed its military mod-ernization as one of the four pillars of its ‘four modernisms’ strategy, itcould not invest generously until the late 1980s. In the first part, it soughtto economize its military spending and sought peace with most of its terri-torial neighbours through settlement of border disputes.

The accelerated pace of military modernization started since themid-1990s. While partly it was a belated acknowledgement of the People’sLiberation Army’s (PLA’s) loyalty during the Tiananmen Square crisis inthe late 1980s, to a great extent, the Chinese leadership was in a position tocommit a huge budget because the economy was growing continuously indouble digits. The modernization basket was quite diverse and compre-hensive. Apart from force reductions and upgrading the service condi-tions of the rank and file, China committed money to expand andconsolidate a domestic military-industrial complex, weapons import, tech-nology development and import, cross subsidizations, and even hiddenbudgetary support.

Studies on China’s Military Modernization

Recent studies on China’s military modernization have been quitecomprehensive and have emanated from university research centres,think tanks, and many defence- and foreign policy-related research insti-tutions. Many doctoral and post-doctoral students have committed them-selves to the study of the myriad dimensions of Chinese militarymodernization. As a result, there has been a proliferation of quality publi-cations on the Chinese PLA and the modernization process. This essay

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seeks to discuss the broad themes of the Chinese military modernizationas covered in some representative publications under review.

While the general focus of the western scholars and official publica-tions have been on the acquisition process as part of the overall militarymodernization, the Chinese indeed started with the doctrinal changes thatwas initiated long before the actual modernization began in the 1990s.After the Vietnam fiasco in 1979, there was a revision of China’s securityenvironment and threat perceptions that had originally justified Mao’s‘people’s war’ doctrine. Ka Po Ng’s book is all about the doctrinal evolu-tion that has taken place since then. Since early 1980s, the Chinese spoke ofthe absence of global war scenario. Protracted wars in their own neigh-bourhood such as in Afghanistan and Iran–Iraq led them to conclude thatgreat powers cannot extend these wars to other theatres and hence allwars would either be ‘localized’ or have only ‘local’ impact. Chinese lead-ership also concluded that threats to China would be mostly from neigh-bouring countries over issues such as ‘border disputes’.

What emerged from the assessment of the external situation and inter-nal debate at the top level was the ‘local war’ doctrine, a shrewd strategythat enabled China to secure its frontiers as well as concentrate on economicdevelopment. To support the doctrine, China also revamped the PLA forcestructure and operations to harness its combat capability. Ka Po Ng’s bookalso discusses the doctrinal transition from ‘local wars’ to ‘local wars undermodern conditions, especially high-technology conditions’. The ‘push andpull’ factors under which this transition has taken place have also been dis-cussed by other scholars, apart from official sources in China and theUnited States. Witness, for example, the Chinese White Paper on Defence,published in 2006, which places emphasis on ‘winning local wars underconditions of informationization’. The US Department of Defense publishesan annual report on ‘military power of China’. In its 2008 report publishedin March 2008, the Department discusses the PLA guidelines on ‘Outline forMilitary Training and Evaluation’ (OMTE) as part of its vision for transfor-mation of warfare under ‘informatized conditions’.

But do doctrines enable us to assess a country’s military power? Do theyreflect force preparedness? Ka Po Ng would like us to believe so. No othercountry has placed so much of emphasis on ‘doctrines’ as China and to thatextent it can even be a deception, as the US annual report makes it clear.Unlike the United States, China does not have the experience of waging and

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winning local wars; thus, doctrinal preparedness remains untested. Ka Po Ngalso does not establish links with other aspects of China’s military moderni-zation drive. His book, therefore, adds little to understand modernization.

The volume by Dennis J Blasko partly answers our search for a compre-hensive study of the Chinese military modernization. The focus of the bookis on the developments since 1999 when the PLA modernization increasedin intensity. In compiling this volume, Blasko seems to have benefited fromhis three decades of military experience, in particular, his posting as armyattaché in Beijing and Hong Kong. The organization of the book is verysimple and revolves around simplistic chapters such as ‘what is PLA?’,‘how does the PLA train?’, ‘how will the PLA fight?’, ‘what equipment doesthe PLA use?’ among others. Though it does not touch burning issues suchas military capabilities across the Taiwan Strait or a comparative study ofthe military power of the PLA versus US forces or other militaries in Asia,the book does identify the broad contours of the modernization package.

One of the conclusions that can be derived from the book is that thereis still space for further manpower trimming of the PLA beyond the200,000—initiated in 2003. Force reduction could be compensated throughincreased mechanization such as armoured regiments instead of infantryregiments, units’ reorganization, logistics reforms (such as outsourcing ofmany tasks), and streamlined training. Additional funds could be pumpedin to purchase ammunition and maintain high operational tempo. Blaskoalso concludes that the PLA modernization process is far from being over.Much remains to be done, and according to the PLA leadership, another10–20 years are needed for it to reach ‘advanced world standards’ inequipment, personnel, and training. He also concludes that the PLA’smilitary performance, despite undergoing a continuous modernizationprocess, will be a function of many variables, not all of which are underChina’s or the PLA’s control. For example, the international political andsecurity situation at the time and events outside of China may affect boththe PLA’s and its adversaries’ course of action. Blasko’s conclusions arewell sourced and are in broad agreement with the emerging consensus.The limitation of his work, however, is that Blasko does not raise thelarger issues related to the modernization debate. His focus is rather onthe structural aspects of the PLA modernization.

Coping with the Dragon, a recent publication by the Center for Technol-ogy and National Security Policy at the National Defense University,

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Washington DC, is another attempt to study the Chinese military modern-ization. According to this study although there may be many discreetobjectives, four particular factors seem to propel China’s modernizationdrive: coerce or force Taiwan into unification, neutralize the US capabili-ties to protect (and embolden) Taiwan, counter a perceived US threat toChina proper, and break the US control of the Western Pacific. China isamassing the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) andstrike assets needed to conduct long-range precision attacks. It is buyingmajor air and naval combat systems from abroad that include advancedfighter jets and submarines. China has ample economic means and hardcurrency to indulge in this shopping spree.

At the same time, China has made a sustained effort to develop itsdefence technological and industrial base commensurate with its risingeconomic status. Mention must be made of the ‘four mechanism’ of com-petition, evaluation, supervision, and recruitment to shore up the defenceindustrial conglomerates. While much ground has been covered in domes-tic manufacturing of key weapons such as missiles, the challenge forChina is to bridge the generational gap and catch up with other first-ratemilitary hardware producers by 2020. This seems to be an ambitious targetgiven that Chinese investment into R&D is less than 5 per cent of the USinvestments.

A supplementary reading to enhance our understanding of the Chi-nese military modernization is the study of China’s Nuclear Future, editedby Paul J. Bolt and Albert S. Willner. According to this, China’s nucleardoctrine has two goals: possessing a secure second-strike capability todeter nuclear strikes on China and preventing other nuclear powers fromusing nuclear weapons to coerce China in a crisis. The current nuclear doc-trine is based more on ‘sufficiency and effectiveness’ rather than compari-son with other nuclear powers. For the same reason, China continues tomaintain a small nuclear force structure. However, China has continued toinvest in strategic forces. Indeed, it is midstream in a decade-long effortaimed at making improvements to its strategic forces through the devel-opment, production, and deployment of follow-on systems to thosealready in place.

More information on China’s nuclear modernization is available in theUS annual report on China’s military power (2008). The force structure, asevidenced by the fielding of the new DF-31 and DF-31A intercontinental-range

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missiles, is enhancing China’s strategic strike capabilities. China’s emer-gent anti-access/area denial capabilities—as exemplified by its continueddevelopment of advanced cruise missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles,and anti-ship ballistic missiles designed to strike ships at sea, includingaircraft carriers, and the January 2007 successful test of a direct-ascent,anti-satellite weapon—are expanding from the land, air, and sea dimen-sions of the traditional battlefield into the space and cyberspace domains.

What about China’s nuclear future? Unfortunately, there is no clearanswer. While quantitative as well as qualitative improvement in thenuclear force structure is a definite possibility, much of the future remainsshrouded in mystery. The last chapter of China’s Nuclear Future hypothe-sizes many alternative scenarios that could become a reality. Much, how-ever, depends on how the global nuclear regime unfolds, including theefforts for global nuclear disarmament. China’s own relations with theUnited States would also shape the contours of future nuclear posture.

It might sound unconventional but perhaps the most candid, authorita-tive, and comprehensive study of China’s military modernization is availa-ble in the Annual Report on China’s Military Power published by the USDepartment of Defense. It appears that the United States alone has theintelligence resources and the research capacity to capture the truth that theChinese are hitherto shy of sharing with others. The 2008 Report discussesin detail how China is laying the foundation for a force able to accomplishthe broader regional and the global objectives. Focus is on force-wide pro-fessionalization, improved training, realistic joint exercises, and acceleratedacquisition and development of modern conventional and nuclear weapons.

One of the areas discussed in the Report is the funding of this modern-ization drive, a fact not covered in other volumes under review. Thereport pegs China’s defence spending to be around $140 billion in 2007,more than three times the official Chinese figures. In fact, there is a wide-spread consensus among the Sinologists and military experts that China isyet to show transparency in its accounting and budgeting procedures asfar as its defence expenditures are involved. The United States is also nothappy with the Chinese effort to obtain sensitive technologies through theillegal means to support its modernization drive. Key areas where Chinacontinues to rely most heavily on foreign technologies include guidance andcontrol systems, turbine engine technology, and enabling technologies such asprecision machine tools and advanced diagnostic and forensic equipment,

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applications, and processes essential to rapid prototyping, computer-assisted design/manufacturing (CAD/CAM), and reverse engineering.

It is primarily in response to Western criticism that China has startedpublishing biannual defence White Papers. Though these White Papershave been under-reporting defence expenditure, the Chinese have usedthe white papers to whisper about their military modernization. Witness,for example, the following excerpts from the 2006 White Paper on China’sNational Defence:

China pursues a three-step development strategy in modernizing itsnational defense and armed forces, in accordance with the state’s overallplan to realize modernization. The first step is to lay a solid foundation by2010, the second is to make major progress around 2020, and the third isto basically reach the strategic goal of building informationized armedforces and being capable of winning informationized wars by the mid-21st century.

The Chinese mindset could also be read through other sections of theWhite Paper, most notably, the section on weaponry and equipment.Accordingly, China has been planning long-term weaponry and equip-ment development, enhancing their capability, optimization, and reformsin the weapons procurement system. However, much of the White Paperis still a propaganda aimed at deflating external criticism of lack of trans-parency in China’s defence management.

Conclusion

Since the seminal publication of David Shambaugh’s ModernizingChina’s Military: Progress, Problems and Prospects (University of CaliforniaPress, Berkeley, 2002), a matching publication comprehensively outliningthe trajectory of the Chinese military modernization is yet to come. Thevolumes under review, nevertheless, add significantly to the knowledgebank on the Chinese military modernization. Nearly all the volumes havecertain common threads to pick up. First, the modernization process stillcontinues with no sight of completion in the near future. Although theChinese have a milestone of 2020 in many areas of modernization, this is adifficult task given that generational gaps continue in such areas. Second,the immediate objective of China’s modernization drive seems to bethe continuing Taiwanese resistance. China would like to have such an

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overwhelming force that the cost of the US interference would be toomuch and Taiwan would have to negotiate at China’s terms. However, inthe long term, Beijing would like to use its military prowess to establishitself as a regional power. Third, the modernization drive does not intendto replace the United States as the military superpower. The asymmetricalgap between the two countries would be simply too much to be bridged.

Because most of the publications on China’s military modernizationare by outside people, not many things are known about the motivations,decision making, and actual intentions behind the modernization. Becausepublications by the Chinese scholars are few and do not touch sensitiveissues such as budget, accounting, and other transparency instruments indefence management, the gap between the actual and perceived knowl-edge would continue for a considerable period of time.

One of the fallacies of the volumes under review is that most of themdo not analyse the Chinese modernization drives beyond Taiwan. How-ever, as a country having an unresolved border dispute and nursing equalpower ambitions in the region, India could equally be a target of Chinesemilitary adventures. The Indians are still fascinated by the Chinese eco-nomic achievements, and many publications have come in recent timeshighlighting the same from an Indian perspective or having implicationsfor India. Unfortunately, barring the lone efforts of Srikanth Kondapalli,Indians are yet to study the Chinese military modernization and its impacton India.

The Reviewer belongs to the Indian Defence Accounts Service(IDAS) and is Deputy Controller of Defence Accounts at theOffice of the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (PCDA)New Delhi.D

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