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From Continent to Periphery: PLA Doctrine, Strategy and Capabilities Towards 2000*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Paul H. B. Godwin
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Extract

In the late spring of 1985, shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the former USSR, the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party (CMC) directed a radical change in the armed forces′ training and preparation for war. The Chinese People′s Liberation Army (PLA-as all the military services and branches are collectively designated) was instructed that it was no longer necessary to prepare for an “early, major and nuclear war” with the Soviet Union. Henceforth, the PLA′s doctrine, strategy and operational concepts would be focused on preparing for the most probable form of future conflict: local, limited war (jubu zhanzheng) around China′s periphery.1 The decade following the CMC′s directive has seen the Chinese armed forces begin the transition towards a more modern, flexible military force as they′changed their organizational structure, command and control, and training to focus on possibly unexpected, potentially intensive military conflict along China′s borders and maritime territories. These changes paralleled the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, which eliminated any significant military threat to China′s northern borders for at least another decade. Nevertheless, and even as Beijing′s security analysts were publicly acknowledging that China′s military security was more assured than it had been for the past 50 years, the defence expenditures of the People′s Republic entered a period of rapid growth that continues to this day.

Type
Doctrine, Training and Capabilities
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 146 , June 1996 , pp. 464 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1996

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References

1. See Generals Zhang Zhen and Li Desheng′ s discussion of the May-June 1985 directive at a meeting with the editorial board of Jiefangjun bao, reported in Dagong bao (Hong Kong), 16 February 1986, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: China (hereafter FBIS-CHI), 18 February 1986, pp. WU-W12.Google Scholar

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13. Ibid. p. 37.

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24. Ibid.

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31. As late as May 1994, Jiefangjun bao was using this phrase to characterize the PLA′s limitations. See PLA Activities Report (Hong Kong), May 1994, p. 17.

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39. The following discussion is taken from John Wilson Lewis and Hua Di, “China′s ballistic missile programs: technologies, strategies, goals,” International Security, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Fall 1992), pp. 5410.

40. Ibid. p. 30.

41. For a useful discussion of the linkages between air, surface and subsurface ASW platforms, see Admiral Rear Hill J. R., RN (Ret), Anti-Submarine Warfare (London: Ian Allen Ltd., 1984), especially ch. 4, pp. 60–93.