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Soldiers, Weapons and Chinese Development Strategy: The Mao Era Military in China's Economic and Institutional Debate*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Evan A. Feigenbaum
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Extract

Renewed interest in China's defence modernization has focused new light on the connection between military goals and national high technology strategy. China is in the throes of a major effort to modernize its arsenal. Its technology planners have begun systematically to build a genuinely national high technology infrastructure that may ultimately enable Chinese defence planners to harness the dual use potential of many new technologies. Yet as scholars and policy-makers raise questions about present patterns and anticipate future trends, it seems more important than ever to take a long look backwards into the origins of the relationship between China's military and its economic development strategy.

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Research Article
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The China Quarterly , Volume 158 , June 1999 , pp. 285 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1999

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References

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7. Concern about the raw expense of sophisticated weapons development began to weigh heavily on Chinese politicians and planners almost immediately after the establishment of the Communist state in October 1949. At the core of this debate was the issue of trade-offs: how much would the purely civilian system “lose” if army-building and weapons development were to “win”? Indeed the weapons debate had a broad parallel in a contemporaneous argument about the size of the armed forces which led to a series of demobilization efforts throughout Mao's years in power. See, for example, Lingyao, Ai, “Zhongguo jundui de ba ci jingjian zhengbian” (“The Chinese military's eight demobilization campaigns”), Junshi shijie (Military World), Vol. 3, No. 1 (01/02, 1990), pp. 74–78.Google Scholar

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11. In fact, the attempt to integrate the two spheres had some history, though it was Marshal Nic's need to face down opposition that led to the most sophisticated effort in this direction. As early as 1950, Mao began to urge colleagues to think more comprehensively about the relationship between defence and civilian industrial construction, recommending an unwavering emphasis upon the latter. Two years later, the government's Central Ordnance Commission urged military enterprises to begin producing civilian output even as they strove to meet their targets in weapons production. But the real break-point was unquestionably the decision to pursue nuclear weapons delivery systems indigenously. Stated simply, this manifoldly increased the pressure on Central government budgeters to respond to the demands of competing constituencies whose needs would be slighted by the sheer expense of the programmes. Mao made his 1950 remarks at the Third Plenum of the Seventh Central Committee, 6–9 June 1950. The 1952 report is discussed in Guang, Xic (ed.), Dangdai Zhongguo de guofang keji shiye (Contemporary China's National Defence Science and Technology Cause) (Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press, Contemporary China Series, 1992, Vol. 1), p. 174Google Scholar. On military-civilian integration efforts during the 1950s, see Guoliang, Liao (ed.), Mao Zedong junshi sixiang fazhan shi (A History of the Development of Mao Zedong's Military Thought) (Beijing: Liberation Army Press, 1991), pp. 507–511Google Scholar, Li, Wang (ed.), Dangdai Zhongguo de bingqi gongye (Contemporary China's Ordnance industry) (Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1993), pp. 54–55Google Scholar, and Zhenhuan, Sun (ed.), Zhongguo guofang jingji jianshe (China's National Defence Economic Construction) (Beijing: Academy of Military Sciences Press, 1991), pp. 175–76.Google Scholar

12. As John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai have noted with respect to the nuclear submarine and its missile (SLBM), “building an [SSBN] and an SLBM demands far greater technological-industrial knowledge and capacity than building nuclear weapons. From metallurgy to reactors, from solid rocket propellants to advanced guidance technology” the R&D dilemmas for taking designs from drawing board to deployment are enormous, and this is also the case with land-based strategic missile systems, which similarly depend on complex inertial guidance technologies, including gyroscopes and accelcrometers. For the quote, see Lewis, and Xue, , China's Strategic Seapower, p. xviii.Google Scholar

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14. Yan, Wang (ed.), Peng Dehuai zhuan (A Biography of Peng Dehuai) (Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press, Contemporary China Series, 1993), pp. 492–570Google Scholar. See especially pp. 540–44 on the debate about how – and how much – to learn from the Soviet experience. See also Joffe, , Party and Army.Google Scholar

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16. As John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai have noted, “Beijing's foreign policy specialists and military planners understood that technological attainments – for example, the making of high-yield warheads or the mastery of missile engineering – could send important political messages to worst-case planners in Washington and Moscow. In the aggregate, such messages might serve in the place of declared new strategic doctrines; they could supersede people's war and paper tigers.” Lewis, and Xue, , China Builds the Bomb, p. 197.Google Scholar

17. For more on this point, see Lewis, and Xue, , China's Strategic Seapower.Google Scholar

18. Rongzhen, Nie, Nie Rongzhen huiyilu (Memoirs of Nie Rongzhen), Vol. 3 (Beijing: Liberation Army Press, 1986), pp. 818–19Google Scholar. A contemporary version of this argument, not one made retrospectively in a memoir account, may be found in a speech Nie made to colleagues in April 1963. Rongzhen, Nie, “Zai jungong lingdao ganbu huiy i shang de jianghua” (“Speech at a meeting of leading cadres from military industry”), in Nie Rongzhen junshi wenxuan (Selected Military Works of Nie Rongzhen) (Beijing: Liberation Army Press, 1992), pp. 496–518.Google Scholar

19. This quotation from a 1955 speech by Marshal Liu Bocheng was a plea for greater attention to defence expenditure. Cited in MacFarquhar, Roderick, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, Vol. 1: Contradictions Among the People, 1956–1957 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 71.Google Scholar

20. Historical records make clear that Mao was a reflexive nationalist on issues that touched China's destiny as a great power. Secondary case studies that elaborate on this point include important works by John Lewis and Xue Litai, Michael Hunt, Chen Jian, David Shambaugh, Thomas Christensen, Iain Johnston, and Robert Ross. In the area of high tech weaponry, for example, Mao had justified a thoroughgoing programme of modernization for the armed forces in 1954 on grounds of China's status as a “great power” in the world. “Our industry, agriculture, culture, and military [strength] are insufficient,” Mao had remarked. “Imperialists assess you in terms of these things and therefore bully us. They say, ‘do you have the atomic bomb?’ But they miscalculate in their assessment. China's latent capacity to develop its strength will astonish [them].” Zedong, Mao, “Zai guofang weiyuanhui diyi ci huiyi shang de jianghua,” p. 359Google Scholar. Lewis and Xue have vividly described the Chairman's viscerally nationalistic reaction to perceived Soviet slights, a picture reinforced by meeting transcripts kept by Mao's secretaries during talks with Soviet representatives. See China's Strategic Seapower, pp. 10–18Google Scholar. See also Mao's nationalistic tongue-lashing of the Soviet ambassador in 1958 over Soviet proposals for a long-wave radio transmission station on Chinese territory to enable communication with the Soviet Pacific Fleet. “Tong Sulian zhu Hua dashi Long Jin de tanhua” (“A discussion with the Soviet ambassador to China, Yudin”) (22 July 1958), based on a meeting transcript, in Selected Diplomatic Works of Mao Zedong, pp. 322–333.Google Scholar

21. For background on this report, see Rongzhen, Nie, Memoirs, Vol. 3, pp. 814–15Google Scholar, and the editor's footnote 2 in Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao (Selected Manuscripts of Mao Zedong Since the Founding of the Republic), restricted circulation edition, Vol. 9 (Beijing: Central Documents Press 1996), pp. 530–31Google Scholar. It is not entirely clear whether Mao saw a copy of the actual Japanese report or whether it was summarized for him by Marshal Nie and his staff. The source of the report was a Japanese financial affairs research conference held in February 1960. The wording of the editor's comments on the Chinese source strongly suggests that this conference was sponsored by a defence office of the Japanese government. Apparently, the conference produced a report with a title along the lines of “Analysing military production from the standpoint of economic policy.” This Japanese report was then provided to Mao by Nie's staff either in full or via a summary report that provided important highlights.

22. Zedong, Mao, “Zai guanyu Riben jingji zhengce he guofang gongye fazhan wenti de yifeng cailiao shang de piyu” (“Written comments on materials concerning Japan's economic policies and military industrial development”) (16 July 1961 ), in Selected Manuscripts of Mao Zedong, Vol. 9, pp. 530–31.Google Scholar

23. Rongzhen, Nie, Memoirs, Vol. 3, pp. 814–15.Google Scholar

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29. This is obviously quite different from classic “market failure” arguments for public technology investment; China, after all, did not have a true market in place during the Mao years. But this formulation resembles the terms of market failure arguments and will no doubt raise the suspicions of some readers that I am attempting to impose market-type arguments on non-market contexts. What is important, I believe, is the common recognition in both formulations of long lead-times and the incentive problems that can ensue. But – significantly – this derives from a completely different problem in each version. In market settings it can be traced to firms' need to earn money on investments, thus introducing market pressure to cam a quick return on R&D disbursements. In the socialist setting, I am suggesting here, it reflects a different set of problems: namely, agents' tendency to maximize gross output above all alternative behavioural motives. In this formulation, only the Centre (and technology programmers at the very apex of the planning system) are comparatively unburdened by the output problem – they seek output, of course, but many other things as well. This comprehensive approach is much more difficult for economic agents down the ladder, since they must maximize behaviours that can be easily observed (and hence rewarded by superiors). This makes short-term output, not long-range R&D, the most likely focus of resource allocation at the firm level. For a good description of the kinds of market failures associated with technology sectors even in highly developed capitalist economies, see Stoneman, Paul, The Economic Analysis of Technology Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987)Google Scholar. Also, Ostry, and Nelson, , Techno-nationalism and Techno-globalism, pp. 28–33Google Scholar, and Levin, Richard et al. , “Appropriating the returns from industrial R&D,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Vol. 3 (1987), pp. 783–831.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. Indeed, China worked to acquire advanced technologies and manufacturing techniques from overseas, particularly under the umbrella of the Soviet alliance, and then moved to build local industrial sectors via licence, loans, or out-and-out purchase and reverse-engineering.

31. Even when these contradicted the anti-clitist strains of Maoist ideology, strategic weapons leaders allowed scientists and technicians considerable free rein to pursue innovative techniques and ideas.

32. It is worth noting, in this vein, that small-scale, private and mixed-ownership R&D, particularly in the consumer electronics industry, has grown up during the past decade as an alternative source of innovation to state technology programming. Like the strategic weapons model that I describe here, this, too, offers a flexible and open-ended model to manage innovation. But unlike the strategic weapons-style system, it discards the “command R&D” component in favour of a bottom-up approach to innovation that is much more resonant of the recent history of technology, including the start-up experience typical of the U.S. software industry.

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37. A prototypical example was a submarine reactor seminar convened on 25 June 1971 by Premier Zhou Enlai with the reactor's chief designers Peng Shilu and Zhao Renkai. The seminar covered a comprehensive range of technical issues. Shilu, Peng, “Yanjin er cixiang de weiren: huiyi Zhou zongli dui yanzhi he qianting de guanhuai” (“A rigorous but kindly great man: recollections of Premier Zhou's concern for research and development on the nuclear submarine”), Shenjian (Magic Sword), No. 1 (01 1988), pp. 12–13Google Scholar. See also Shilu, Peng and Rcnkai, Zhao, “Canjia wo guo he qianting yanzhi gongzuo de tihui” (“A few words about our participation in research and development work for our country's nuclear submarine”), in Li, Nie and Cuomo, Huai (eds.), Huigu yu zhanwang: xin Zhongguo de guofang keji gongye (Retrospect and Prospect: New China's Defence Science, Technology and Industry) (Beijing: Defence Industry Press, 1989), p. 207.Google Scholar

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42. The 1995 figure of 214 total CAS Academicians is from “CAS launches ‘321’ program to foster 21st century S&T leaders,” translation of an article from Guizhou ribao (Guizhou Daily), 25 05 1995, p. 3Google Scholar, reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Service Report, China, Science and Technology Series, 18 08 1995, p. 13.Google Scholar

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44. Rongzhen, Nie, Memoirs, Vol. 3, p. 823.Google Scholar

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46. Cheng, Jing, “Shou'ao cangqiong: wo guo diyi ke renzao weixing ‘dongfanghong-1 hao’ shang tian ji” (“A first trip to the sky: the story of the ascent to the heavens of our country's first man-made satellite, the ‘East is Red-1’”), in Political Department of the Ministry of the Space Industry and Space Section of the Magic Sword Literature and Art Society (eds.), Hangtian shiye sanshi nian (Thirty Years of the Space Cause) (Beijing: Space Navigation Press, 1986), pp. 22–60.Google Scholar

47. On this seminar, see Lewis, and Xue, , China Builds the Bomb, pp. 37–39.Google Scholar

48. On these personnel issues in the CAST, see Shuntong, Wang (ed.), Zhongguo kexue jishu xiehui (The China Association/or Science and Technology) (Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1994).Google Scholar

49. On the August 1955 transfers, see Guang, Xie, National Defence Science and Technology, Vol. 1, p. 14Google Scholar. On the June 1956 transfers, see Rongzhen, Nie, Memoirs, Vol. 3, p. 796.Google Scholar

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54. Rongzhen, Nie, Memoirs, Vol. 3, p. 823Google Scholar. The institution of competition was a staple feature of Chinese strategic weapons development. In some sense, this came from the Soviet experience. See, for example, Holloway, David, “Innovation in the defence sector,” in Amman, Ronald and Cooper, Julian (eds.), Industrial innovation in the Soviet Union (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), p. 317Google Scholar. For another example of very explicit competition in Chinese strategic weapons development, see the discussion of competing plutonium concepts in Churning, Zhang, “Zhongguo heneng zhuanjia Jiang Shengjie” (“The Chinese nuclear expert, Jiang Shengjie”), Liaowang (Outlook), overseas ed., 20 07 1987, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

55. On the impact of strategic weapons on metallurgy, see Jun, Lian, “There is a secret arsenal beneath Helan Shan,” Ningxia ribao (Ningxia Daily), 12 09 1992, p. 3Google Scholar, translated and reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report, China, 8 12 1992, p. 12Google Scholar. For the chemical industry, sec Youdi, Zhu, “Guofang huaxue gongye xingcheng xin tixi” (“The formation of a new national defence chemical industrial system”) Jiefangjun bao (Liberation Army Daily), 7 12 1990Google Scholar, and Tao, Tao, “Huagong xin cailiao zai wei guofang keji gongzuo fuwu zhong chcng chang”Google Scholar (“New chemical materials will grow to maturity through service to national defence, science, technology and industry”), in Li, Nie and Guomo, Huai, Retrospect and Prospect, pp. 478–80Google Scholar. Nie's role in establishing the metals and chemical industry bureaucracies is detailed in Memoirs, Vol. 3, p. 820Google Scholar. On the role of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in joint work with the PLA on satellite telemetry, tracking and control, see Guang, Xic, National Defence Science and Technology, Vol. 1, pp. 468–471.Google Scholar

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57. On the Moscow Aviation Institute agreement, see Nic's report to Premier Zhou Enlai: Rongzhen, Nie, “Jiaqiang wo guo yanzhi daodan wenti dc baogao” (“Report on how to strengthen our country's missile research and development”), 25 10 1956, especially p. 396Google Scholar, reprinted in Nie Rongzhen junshi wenxuan (Selected Military Works of Nie Rongzhen) (Beijing: Liberation Army Press, 1992), pp. 395–97Google Scholar. On Nie's push in electrical engineering, see Rongzhen, Nie, Memoirs, Vol. 3, pp. 805–806.Google Scholar

58. These themes are covered in Feigenbaum, Evan A., “Who's behind China's high technology ‘revolution’? How bomb makers remade Beijing's priorities, policies, and institutions,” International Security, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Summer 1999, forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59. See, for instance, Mu, Shang, “Progress in China's high technology research and development plan,” Keji ribao (Science Daily), 17 11 1989, p. 4Google Scholar, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, China Science and Technology Series, 8 02 1990, pp. 2–4.Google Scholar