me?” He went on to give the strongest indication yet that China was building an aircraft carrier.“The navy of any great power… has the dream to have one or more aircraft carriers,” he said.
Like many of the party leaders of his generation, Deng was himself a veteran of the Communist Party’s war against the Nationalists and the Long March. Not only did he have strong personal relationships with the military top brass when he assumed power, but they also had a sense of shared sacrifice in defense of the party. Over the last couple of decades, however, the party and the military have taken differentpaths. The party has become dominated by trained bureaucrats who have worked their way up the system, spending decades in provincial jobs learning the ropes. The new military leaders are also cut from a different cloth. Rather than party ideologues well schooled in the texts of Marxism-Leninism, they are now professional soldiers who are focused on honing their new skills. The PLA has less influence over domestic politics than it used to enjoy but, at the same time, the party is much less directly involved in the PLA than it once was. The PLA political commissars, who once enforced political orthodoxy among the rank and file, are now much more focused on boosting morale—one Chinese observer likens them to the equivalent of chaplains in a Western army. As Marxism has withered as a guiding force, the military has also developed a stronger sense of its role as a defender of the national interest. China now has a professional officer class with a slightly Prussian air, which is proud of the new capabilities at its disposal and was reared on a worldview that sees China as a powerful and strong nation.
The most dangerous situation would be if a few “rogue generals” started to freelance, using the perceived weakness of civilian leaders to push their own agenda outside of the formal policy process. That would be a large red-flag warning about looming future instability in China’s relations with the rest of the world. Most informed observers of China’s military believe that this is far from the case, and that the Communist Party leadership still remains firmly in control of the military. But every now and then, there are tantalizing glimpses of a restless military that is occasionally willing to push the boundaries. The test flight of the J-20 on the day Robert Gates was in town was one such case. Another incident happened in 2007, when China used a land-based missile to blow a weather satellite out of space. The test was a wake-up call for foreign militaries, a warning shot about China’s cyberwar capabilities. Just as illuminating was the way the test was discovered. With no word coming from the Chinese government, the story first appeared in a U.S. magazine, which was probably tipped off by U.S. or other Western intelligence agencies. And even when the news did break, the Foreign Ministry gave the impression that it had been left completely in the dark by the military.
These little glimpses of the interactions between the PLA and theparty suggest an occasionally confrontational streak, but they do not indicate a stark split. The real influence that the PLA is starting to have is more subtle, the result not of open lobbying but from the drip-feed effect of a military worldview that is both intensely proud of China and deeply skeptical about the U.S. military. It is this tide of hawkish views that is helping to gradually chip away at Deng’s call for self-restraint. By exposing big shifts in relative power that have taken place between the U.S. and China, the financial crisis encouraged some in China to believe that the time was theirs. Hu Jintao had few connections with the military before he became president in 2002, and Chinese academics and officials who attend regular foreign-policy gatherings with military officials would describe the openness with which Hu was criticized—something that would have been
Like many of the party leaders of his generation, Deng was himself a veteran of the Communist Party’s war against the Nationalists and the Long March. Not only did he have strong personal relationships with the military top brass when he assumed power, but they also had a sense of shared sacrifice in defense of the party. Over the last couple of decades, however, the party and the military have taken differentpaths. The party has become dominated by trained bureaucrats who have worked their way up the system, spending decades in provincial jobs learning the ropes. The new military leaders are also cut from a different cloth. Rather than party ideologues well schooled in the texts of Marxism-Leninism, they are now professional soldiers who are focused on honing their new skills. The PLA has less influence over domestic politics than it used to enjoy but, at the same time, the party is much less directly involved in the PLA than it once was. The PLA political commissars, who once enforced political orthodoxy among the rank and file, are now much more focused on boosting morale—one Chinese observer likens them to the equivalent of chaplains in a Western army. As Marxism has withered as a guiding force, the military has also developed a stronger sense of its role as a defender of the national interest. China now has a professional officer class with a slightly Prussian air, which is proud of the new capabilities at its disposal and was reared on a worldview that sees China as a powerful and strong nation.
The most dangerous situation would be if a few “rogue generals” started to freelance, using the perceived weakness of civilian leaders to push their own agenda outside of the formal policy process. That would be a large red-flag warning about looming future instability in China’s relations with the rest of the world. Most informed observers of China’s military believe that this is far from the case, and that the Communist Party leadership still remains firmly in control of the military. But every now and then, there are tantalizing glimpses of a restless military that is occasionally willing to push the boundaries. The test flight of the J-20 on the day Robert Gates was in town was one such case. Another incident happened in 2007, when China used a land-based missile to blow a weather satellite out of space. The test was a wake-up call for foreign militaries, a warning shot about China’s cyberwar capabilities. Just as illuminating was the way the test was discovered. With no word coming from the Chinese government, the story first appeared in a U.S. magazine, which was probably tipped off by U.S. or other Western intelligence agencies. And even when the news did break, the Foreign Ministry gave the impression that it had been left completely in the dark by the military.
These little glimpses of the interactions between the PLA and theparty suggest an occasionally confrontational streak, but they do not indicate a stark split. The real influence that the PLA is starting to have is more subtle, the result not of open lobbying but from the drip-feed effect of a military worldview that is both intensely proud of China and deeply skeptical about the U.S. military. It is this tide of hawkish views that is helping to gradually chip away at Deng’s call for self-restraint. By exposing big shifts in relative power that have taken place between the U.S. and China, the financial crisis encouraged some in China to believe that the time was theirs. Hu Jintao had few connections with the military before he became president in 2002, and Chinese academics and officials who attend regular foreign-policy gatherings with military officials would describe the openness with which Hu was criticized—something that would have been
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