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PLA Allegiance on Parade: Civil-Military Relations in Transition*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Jeremy T. Paltiel
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Extract

Civil-military relations in China demonstrate a unique fusion of military and political leadership within the Communist Party. Variously described as a “symbiosis,” “dual-role elite” or “the Party in uniform,” this feature rooted in the guerrilla experience of the Chinese Communist Party was sustained over six decades by the political longevity of the Long March generation. The civil war experience formed political leaders skilled in both civil affairs and military command. Analysts of civil-military relations in China must therefore define the scope of “civil” in relation to the Chinese Communist Party.

Type
Concepts and Methods
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 143 , September 1995 , pp. 784 - 800
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1995

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References

1 This theory should be attributed to Stuart Schram, R., “The Party in Chinese Communist 1 ideology,” in John, Wilson Lewis (ed.), Party Leadership and Revolutionary Power in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 170–202.Google Scholar

2 Perlmutter, Amos and Leogrande, William M., “The Party in uniform: toward a theory of civil-military relations in Communist political systems,” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 76, No. 4 (December 1982), pp. 778–789.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Ibid.

4 Huntington, Samuel P., The Soldier and the State (New York: Vintage, 1957). See esp. p. 83.Google Scholar

5 Zedong, Mao, “Problems of war and strategy,” Selected Works Vol. II (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1975), pp. 219–235, at p. 224.Google Scholar

6 Schram first pointed out the political significance of this in “The Party in Chinese Communist ideology.”

7 Hsiao-Shih, Cheng, Party-Military Relations in the People's Republic of China and Taiwan: Paradoxes of Control (Boulder Westview, 1990), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

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9 Article 15 (1975); Article 19 (1978).

10 Weiyun, Xiao, Woguo xianxing xianfa de dansheng (The Birth of Our Current Constitution) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1986) pp. 73–74.Google Scholar When the new constitutional provisions were introduced, Hu Qiaomu clarified them as follows: “From the day of its birth the PLA has been led by the Party. This accords with the fundamental interests of the country for the Party to continue to lead the PLA and the CMC of the state. All Chinese understand this…. Two central military commissions will not appear.” Renmin ribao, 14 September 1982.

11 In June 1988 the Central Military Commission established a “Legal System Bureau” (Fazhiju). An association for the study of military law was founded in Beijing in 1990. In December 1991 a research association in military law was established under the Chinese Legal Association (Zhongguo faxuehui) and organized the publication of a periodical entitled The Chinese Military Legal System (Zhongguo junshi fazhi). See Tu, Men (ed.), Junshi faxue jiaocheng (A Course in Military Jurisprudence) (Beijing: Falu chubanshe, 1992), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

12 Ibid. pp. 86–87.

13 Ibid. p. 85.

14 The “Disciplinary Regulations” of the PLA promulgated in June 1990 lists five basic disciplines of which the first two in order of precedence are: “1. Upholding the line, orientation and policies of the CCP. 2. Respecting the state constitution, laws, and regulations.” See An, Wang, Jundui tiaoling yu guanli (Military Regulations and Management) (Beijing: Junshi kexue chubanshe, 1992), p. 45.Google Scholar

15 Article 5 of the Constitution of the PRC reads in part: “All state organs, the armed forces, all political parties and public organizations and all enterprises and undertakings must abide by the Constitution and the law. All acts in violation of the Constitution and the law must be looked into.” The General Programme of the Constitution of the Communist Party of China reads in part: “The Party must conduct its activities within the limits permitted by the Constitution and the laws of the state.”.

16 “Our Army is a people's army led by the Party. It is the cornerstone of the consolidation of state power. People regularly link together the image of the Army the Party and the state.” Wang An, Jundui tiaoling yu guanli, p. 175.

17 That is, to persist along the socialist road; to persist under the dictatorship of the proletariat; to persist with the leadership of the Communist Party; and to persist with Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought. See Xiaoping, Deng, “Jianchi sixiang jiben yuanzi” (“Uphold the Four Cardinal Principles”), Wenxuan (1975–1982) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1983), p. 150.Google Scholar

18 Xiaoping, Deng, “Muqian de xingshi he renwu” (“The present situation and the tasks before us”), Wenxuan (1975–1982), p. 230.Google Scholar

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21 William E. Odom, “The Party-military connection: a critique,” in Herspring and Volgyes, Civil-Military, pp. 27–52.

22 Joffe, Ellis, Party and Army: Professionalism and Political Control in the Chinese Officer Corps, 1949–1964 (Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also The Chinese Army After Mao (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).

23 See Jencks, Harlan, From Muskets to Missiles: Politics and Professionalism in the Chinese Army 1945–1981 (Boulder: Westview, 1982).Google Scholar

24 Jencks, Harlan, “Civil-military relations in China,” Problems of Communism, No. XL (May-June 1991), pp. 14–29.Google Scholar

25 Mao set a 1:1 ratio of Party members to non-members among combat soldiers; later this was reduced to 1:2. Zedong, Mao, “The struggle in Chingkang Mountains,” Selected Works Vol. I (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), pp. 73–104.Google Scholar The civil war ratio of army Party members to total Party membership was around 20% (1.25 million out of 5.8 million Party members in 1950). John Gittings, “Army-Party relations in the light of the Cultural Revolution,” in Lewis, Party Leadership, p. 393. Under Deng Xiaoping the percentage of Party members among soldiers was reduced to 20% with military academies providing the bulk of recruits. See Cheng, Chu-Yuan, Behind the Tiananmen Massacre (Boulder: Westview, 1990), p. 108.Google Scholar See also Johnson, Alastair I., “Party rectification in the PLA 1983–87,” The China Quarterly, No. 112 (December 1987), p. 603.Google Scholar Recent estimates of Party membership in the military fall close to the absolute number above (1.2 to 1.5 million) asmall proportion of the 54 million Party members today. See Shambaugh, David, “The soldier and the state in China: the political work system in the People's Liberation Army,” The China Quarterly, No. 127 (September 1991), pp. 527–568Google Scholar, n. 85, p. 550.

26 AtthemostrecentlyelectedNationalPeople'sCongrcss, justunder 9 of the delegates were active service PLA personnel. While by no means a dominant proportion of delegates, it still grossly overrepresents the military with respect to the overall adult population.

27 Cheng Hsiao-Shih,Party-Military Relations, p. 7.

28 See Cheng, Li and White, Lynn, “The army in the succession to Deng Xiaoping,” Asian Survey, Vol. XXXHI, No. 8 (August 1993), pp. 757–786.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Shambaugh, “The soldier and the state,” pp. 567–68.

30 “In sum, we are unable to lend much credence to the claim that the PLA operates as an identifiable group on professional issues.” Segal, Gerald, “The military as a group in Chinese politics,” in Goodman, David S. G. (ed.), Groups and Politics in the PRC (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1984), p. 90.Google Scholar

31 Harding, Harry, “The role of the military in Chinese politics,” in Victor, Falkenheim (ed.), Citizens and Groups in Contemporary China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, 1987), pp. 213–256.Google Scholar

32 Sandschneider, Eberhard, “Military and politics in the PRC,” in June Teufel, Dreyer (ed.), Chinese Defense and Foreign Policy (New York: Paragon House, 1988), pp. 331–347, at p. 114.Google Scholar

33 Swaine, Michael D., The Military and Political Succession in China: Leadership, Institutions, Beliefs (Santa Monica: Rand, 1992).Google Scholar

34 Perlmutter and Leogrande apply the concept of the “party in uniform” to show that in any intra-Party crisis, the military has the potential to intervene, but that this intervention, like the imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981 or the role of the PLA during the Cultural Revolution in China, is done in order to uphold Party power, not in contradiction to it. See “The Party in uniform.”

35 Chinese Communist Party Central Circular, “Concerning several questions related to strengthening and improving the army's political work under the new situation” (Central Document No. 4, 1990) reprinted in The China Quarterly, No. 131 (September 1992), pp. 872–896, at pp. 883–84. For the speech by Yang Baibing introducing the document see Yang Baibing, “An explanation of ‘Several questions concerning strengthening political work and the army under the new situation',” ibid. pp. 897–907.

36 See for example, Chenghu Zhu, Colonel, “An introduction to the National Defence University of the Chinese People's Liberation Army,” Army & Defence Quarterly Journal, Vol. 124, No. 1. (January 1994).Google Scholar Zhu notes exchanges with over 60 countries including annual exchanges with the U.S.

37 For example Wang An, Jundui tiaoling yu guanli. Chapters 15–17 review the military regulations of foreign armies, including those of the former Soviet Union and the United States and other Western armies, pp. 91–110.

38 Cheng Hsiao-shih, Party-Military Relations, p. 76.

39 Article 29 states “The armed forces of the PRC belong to the people, their tasks are to strengthen national defence, resist aggression, defend the motherland, participate in national reconstruction, and work hard to serve the people. The state strengthens the revolutionization, modernization and regularization of the armed forces in order to increase the national defence capacity.”

40 The fall of Hu Yaobang is not a clear-cut case of military intervention in civilian politics. Since Hu “resigned,” neither the Party rules nor the constitution were violated. His major crime in the eyes of the military was close identification with the retirement of veterans. However, throughout the promotion of the “third echelon,” which he directed, Hu was largely excluded from personnel decisions in the PLA. This exclusion left him without support in the CMC and ultimately made him expendable. For the role of Hu Yaobang in the politics of rejuvenating the Party, see the author's “The Communist Party goes to market: Hu Yaobang and the CCP Rectification 1983–87.” On the military and the fall of Hu Yaobang, see Dittmer, Lowell, “Patterns of elite strife and succession in Chinese politics,” The China Quarterly, No. 123 (December 1990), pp. 408–409.Google Scholar Also, China Under Reform (Boulder: Westview, 1994), pp. 97–99.

41 Article 42: “The Chairman of the People's Republic of China commands the armed forces of the country, and is chairman of the Council of National Defence.”

42 Article 89 (16) gives the State Council the power “to decide on the enforcement of martial law in parts of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government.”

43 For the irregularities concerning the CMC see Pollack, Jonathan M., “Structure and process in the Chinese military system” in Lieberthal, Kenneth G. and Lampton, David M. (eds.), Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 151–180, esp. pp. 178–180.Google Scholar

44 Brook, Timothy, Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement (Toronto: Lester, 1992), p. 30.Google Scholar

45 For this reason Avery Goldstein eschews the term “institution” to describe the authoritative organizations in the PRC. See, ‘Trends in the study of political elites and institutions in the PRC,” The China Quarterly, No. 139 (September 1994), p. 720.

46 The Chairman, Vice-Chairmen and members of the Party Central Military Commission are all on the nomenklatura of the central organs of the Party. See Burns, John P., “Strengthening central CCP control of leadership selection,” The China Quarterly, No. 138 (1994), p. 476.Google Scholar

47 “Without a core the leadership is unreliable. Chairman Mao was the core of the leadership collective of the first generation. Because there was Chairman Mao to play the role of leadership core, the ‘Cultural Revolution’ did not overthrow the Communist Party. In the second generation, actually I am the core. Because there is this core, even though there have been two leadership changes [i.e. Hu Yaobang Party in 1987 and Zhao Ziyang in 1989]… leadership has remained stable.” Deng Xiaoping, “Disandai lingdao jiti de dangwu zhi ji” (The leadership collective of the third generation”), Wenxuan, Vol. III, p. 310.

48 Indoctrination documents in the post 1989 period indirectly address this problem: “…the leadership of the Communist Party is the core of the four cardinal principles… some of our comrades are still puzzled by such issues as the superiority of the socialist system and its prospects…” “…most… cadres and fighters are young people, [who] do not have a profound understanding of China's national conditions… and modern history so… they will clearly understand the objective necessity of socialism replacing capitalism and… clearly understand that taking the socialist road is the only correct option the Chinese people have made in the protracted struggle.” Special Commentator, “Pay close attention to main subject Of political education,” Jiefangjun bao, 22 April 1990 in FBIS-China 90–098 (21 May 1990), p. 42.

49 Zang, Xiaowei, “Professionalism and the leadership transition in the post-Mao army,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, Vol. X, No. 3 (Fall 1991), p. 52.Google Scholar

50 For military resistance to Deng's reform programme, see Johnson, Alastair I., “Changing Party-Army relations in China, 1979–1984,” Asian Survey, Vol. XXIV, No. 10 (October 1984), pp. 1020–1032.Google Scholar Mao overcame dissent from Peng Dehuai in 1959 as well as Lin Biao in 1971.

51 Wang Ruilin, who has commanded no troops in the field, was promoted to Colonel-General (shangjiang) the top rank currently available in the PLA. “Zhongyang junwei juxing pusheng shangjiang junguanxian yishi” (“CMC holds ceremony for promotions to Colonel-General”), Renmin ribao, 9 June 1994. See also Lin Wei, “Jiang Zemin dasong shangjiang xian” (“Jiang Zemin hands out big promotions to Colonel-General”), Jiushi niandai (The Nineties), July 1994, pp. 82–83.

52 The emphasis placed on “collective leadership” and the prominence given the “third generation ‘core’ leadership” at the Fourth Plenum of the 14th Central Committee in September 1994 conveys an acknowledgement of the instability. “We must further complete and improve the series of systems of democratic centralism, to make these withstand a change of leader, to make them withstand the change of a leader's span of attention; we must raise the conscious upholding of democratic centralism by the whole Party, especially leading cadres, opposing various tendencies to violate and oppose this system, preventing individual dictatorship and extreme democracy.” “Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu jiaqiang dang de jianshe jige zhongda wenti de jueding” (“The decision of the Central Committee of the CCP concerning several important questions of Party building”), Qiushi, No. 20 (1994), pp. 2–11.

53 Li and White calculate that the 14th Central Committee elected in October 1992 has the highest percentage of military representation since the 11th CC in 1977. Nearly one-quarter of the full members are military elites, as are nearly one-third of the newly elected full members. See Li Cheng and Lynn White, “The army in succession to Deng Xiaoping,” p. 758.

54 Some sources suggest that the Yang brothers sought to pre-empt their use as scapegoats by proactively repudiating the military repression on their own. See Fewsmith, Joseph, “Reform, resistance and the politics of succession,” in Joseph, William A. (ed.), China Briefing, 1994 (Boulder: Westview, 1994), p. 13.Google Scholar

55 As of December 1989 21 senior officers were court-martialled, including General Xu Qinxin, commander of the 38 Army corps. See Shambaugh, “The soldier and the state”, p. 552.

56 See Ding, Arthur, “The recent shuffle of PLA leaders,” Issues and Studies, Vol. 28, No. 12 (December 1992), pp. 116–18.Google Scholar

57 PLA policies actively encourage military entrepreneurship. In 1990, revenues from productive activities by the PLA were equivalent to two-thirds of the state defence budget. 30% of earnings are spent on troop costs, 30% on maintaining barracks and 4% on training. For the extent and manner in which military units are involved in entrepreneurial activities, see Brian Murray, “Red Army swords and free market plowshares,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, Vol. X, No. 2 (Summer 1991) pp. 26–52.Google Scholar See also Ding, Arthur S., “The nature Old impact of the PLA's business activities,” Issues and Studies, Vol. 29, No. 8 (August 1993), pp. 85–100.Google Scholar Foreign military sales account for a small portion of military business activities, tat one with profound international implications. See Hyer, Eric, “China's arms merchants: profits in command,” The China Quarterly, No. 132 (December 1992), pp. 1109–118.Google Scholar

58 This was underlined by the ceremony to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Zunyi conference. Jiang Zemin used this occasion to highlight support from veteran military leaders. Yang Shangkun, one of the handful of eyewitnesses still living (and in good health) was deliberately excluded from the ceremony. “Jinian Zunyi huiyi 60 zhounian zuotan hui zuo zai Beijing juxing” (“Ceremonial meeting commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Zunyi Conference held yesterday in Beijing”), Renmin ribao (overseas edition), 18 January 1995. For Yang Shangkun's whereabouts see Nigel Holbums, “For whom the bell tolls,” The Far Eastern Economic Review, 2 February 1995, pp. 14–15.

59 See Deng Xiaoping, “Disandai lingdao jiti,” pp. 309–314.

60 I have been guided in this discussion by the essays in O'donnell, Guillermo and Schmitter, C. Philippe, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; also the other books in the series: O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Laurence, Whitehead (eds.), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 1986)Google Scholar; Transitions From Authoritarian Rule: Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1986). See also Malloy, James M. and Seligson, Mitchell A. (eds.), Authoritarians and Democrats: Regime Transition in Latin America (Pittsburg: Pittsburg University Press, 1987); andGoogle ScholarStepan, Alfred, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

61 This is one of the conclusions of Lynn White. See White Hi, Lynn T., “The Liberation Army and the Chinese people,” in Henry, Bienen and David, Morell (eds.), Political Participation Under Military Regimes (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1976), pp. 115–135.Google Scholars

62 Jencks, “Civil-military relations in China.”