Nearly four decades of economic reforms have led to a profound transformation of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA); nowhere has that change been more apparent than in the period following the 18th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). With Xi Jinping's ascension to the trifecta of Party–state–military power coinciding with the structural indicators of Chinese comprehensive strength, the PLA's status in Beijing's domestic and international calculus has unsurprisingly become more pronounced. As the strategic depth of the Asian power continues to extend along with its global economic heft, this will surely increase.
In their edited volume, Phillip Saunders and Andrew Scobell have assembled seasoned scholars of Chinese military affairs to document the changes to the PLA: first, on matters pertaining to its internal politics; second, its role in Chinese foreign and security policymaking; and third, the extent of its leverage in Beijing's actual disputes with other regional actors. Contrary to some media portrayals of a dominant PLA role accounting for Chinese assertiveness, Saunders and Scobell – using a process-centric approach, and by looking at specific issues – conclude that the PLA only exercises due power on military issues at the operational, and (to a lesser extent) strategic levels. To be sure, the nature and degree of that influence also varies between the pre-decision, decision and implementation phases.
Regarding the PLA's internal machinations, the rise of Xi Jinping in his capacity as Central Military Commission (CMC) chairman, replete with his strongman persona and hands-on approach, has been a most significant development. As Nan Li and Tai Ming Cheung point out respectively, Xi's determination to impose his will on the Party's coercive forces serves to avert the “reign without rule” tenures of his immediate predecessors, as well as reshapes the PLA into a force commensurate with Beijing's global stature in conformity with his “China Dream” – that is, a strong country has to have a military that is equally powerful. In unravelling the unprecedented military autonomy that had crept into CCP-PLA relations, Xi has since campaigned against military malfeasance and reformed the PLA.
While the right balance between subjective and objective control remains an ideal to aspire to, Alice Miller emphasizes that Xi's use of institutional mechanisms has also reinforced the subordination of the PLA to civilian rule. Owing to civil–military bifurcation, however, as Isaac Kardon and Phillip Saunders rightly caution in their chapter, the PLA's growing cognisance of its corporate identity and pursuit of its institutional interests may yet pose challenges for the Party's control of the gun in future crisis scenarios.
On the foreign policy front, Michael Swaine traces the developments in the PLA's formulations of potential external threats, and argues convincingly that its current elites do not wield as much influence as their revolutionary predecessors on policymaking and implementation. While it remains its prerogative vis-à-vis its civilian masters on purely defence matters, ultimate authority regarding China's national interests nevertheless resides with its commander-in-chief and his civilian colleagues in the echelons of power.
Bonnie Glaser and Andrew Scobell then focus on cross-Straits relations and the Korean peninsula to ascertain the level of PLA influence in two existential threats to Chinese national security. Continuing the thread that PLA leaders are merely armed servants of the CMC chairman, both Glaser and Scobell discover – whether by accident or by design – that a considerable degree of overlap exists between the policy preferences of civilian and military elites. Eric Hagt further examines the rise of PLA diplomacy, and posits that this subtler form of power projection will somehow be rendered ineffectual by China's growing military might.
On territorial and maritime disputes, the chapters by Taylor Fravel and Christopher Yung likewise depict an establishment whose tactical concerns remain subordinate to the overall strategic calculus of the Party-state, to the extent that China's sometimes aggressive – albeit non-militarized – maritime activities would not have been possible without the consent of civilian leaders.
With Beijing keen to become a maritime power, Linda Jakobson's contribution alludes to the locus of the PLA within the complex web of security policy actors in the Party–state–military nexus, and highlights the challenges that lie ahead before a united front can be coordinated between the military and both paramilitary and civilian actors, in defending Chinese interests. As with its overall foreign policymaking, the CCP's ability to operationalize civil-military integration will be key.
The literature on the PLA may have expanded in recent years, but Chinese security policymaking remains a huge black box. Though hardly surprising, the dearth of civilian–military tension over China's national security policymaking in these essays deserves greater scrutiny. Considering the PLA's growing professionalism, whether Xi will succeed in reconciling the competing needs for its rank-and-file to be both red and expert remains to be seen. Still, and in light of the recent reforms, this is a fine contribution to the field in making sense of what has surely become a very important development on the Asia-Pacific security landscape.
