Abstract
Growing out of a conference hosted by the RAND Corporation and co-sponsored by think tanks in the US and Taiwan, the book under review is a reasonably comprehensive study of the process, framework, organs and execution of various contingencies that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is likely to be entrusted with by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese state.
The book is organised into an introduction and three major parts, beginning with an overview and then considering domestic, border and maritime contingencies. A variety of approaches are used, ‘including examining PLA doctrine, reviewing military writing, looking at lessons learned by the Chinese from previous conflicts, and studying how state organs in China other than the PLA plan and execute emergency responses’ (p. 3). The authors have also ‘templated’ plausible PLA responses based on their own experience and how other armed forces would react.
The introduction by Phillip Saunders presents a gestalt picture of the PLA and contingency planning, stating upfront that ‘the major challenge is finding enough information’. Saunders surmises from available information that the PLA focuses more on deliberate planning and less on crisis action planning; its vulnerabilities and weaknesses observed in its reactions to major crises, from natural disasters to evacuation of Chinese nationals from far-away conflict zones, are a direct result of such a focus. He calls attention to the PLA’s dependence on utilising civilian infrastructure, resources and personnel, regular efforts to draw lessons from previous responses and incorporation of remedial measures in each subsequent event, training or actual response. Notably, Saunders stresses the confidence that the Chinese leadership has in the PLA’s capability to deliver in low-intensity scenarios requiring emergency responses, even when important planning, logistics or training issues remain hazy and unclear.
The next section of the book walks the reader through the process of ‘Thinking and Planning for Contingencies’ in six chapters. Examining the security challenges for the Chinese establishment, Mark Cozad discusses how the PLA identifies national interests and draws out its missions. Cozad argues that the Military Strategic Guidelines and the ‘main strategic direction’ influence planning, and is skeptical about the PLA’s capability to adapt to the increasing diversity of potential threats. The recent reorganisation of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the General Departments, the PLA’s organisation for the higher direction of war, may indeed have emerged after long deliberations on how to improve this capability.
The fact that the PLA and the Chinese security establishment are avid followers of new concepts, capabilities and potentially disruptive technologies, as discussed or revealed in the West, is well known. Marcelyn Thompson notes that even as the Chinese publicly identify the vulnerabilities of the US armed forces as they deploy around the globe, they themselves are eager to implement a system, including space-based C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) to match the Americans. She also suggests that automated decision aids and better C4ISR may actually deny the PLA commanders the autonomy to execute their plans successfully. This is a typical Catch-22 situation; the use of technology is unavoidable if efficiencies have to be created and maintained, but technology also produces at least a modicum of ‘back seat driving’ by higher headquarters (HQ).
In their examination of the plans and responses by non-PLA forces—the Police and the People’s Armed Police (PAP)—to internal unrest, and of the bureaucratic framework of responding to an emergency situation, Jonathan Walton and Catherine Welch span the spectrum of internal unrest from Xinjiang and Tibet to Ningxia. Welch discusses the different levels of national emergencies and how the National Emergency Response Plan 2006 seeks to lay down regulations, standards and guidance. The articles show to a discerning student of Chinese affairs that unlike political structures in the US or India, where the police and policing are part of provincial jurisdiction and control, in China the Public Security Bureau reports to the central government, that is, to the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing.
In a detailed study of Chinese mobilisation policies and planning, Dean Cheng has spelt out the levels, flow of control and specific tasks of the Defense Mobilization Committees, and their correspondence and coordination with People’s Armed Force Departments (PAFD) at every level. Highlighting the relevance and importance of the National Defense Mobilization Law 2010 in formalising and providing constitutional and legal basis for the existing mobilisation structures, Cheng pithily states that ‘The military determines requirements, the National Defense Mobilization Committees implements coordination, and the government fulfills requirements’ (p. 7).
Concluding the first part of the compilation, Mark Stokes discusses how the PLA would be mobilised for a probable Taiwan contingency. The 2016 reforms of the CMC and the four General Departments have largely overturned and overtaken the putative organisation for higher direction as discussed in this chapter, with the reformed organisation possibly more capable of synergy.
The next two chapters of the book deal with domestic contingencies, and how the PLA has steadily stepped back from being the instrument of choice to deal with domestic unrest, even as it lurks in the shadow. The emergence, empowerment and potential of the PAP has been discussed in detail, with specific references to incidents when the PLA has played an enabling, behind the frontline, role in support of the PAP. A simple model to measure mobilisation has been illustrated well.
It is possibly because today’s PLA is vastly different from the PLA that took part in the actual wars in Korea, with India, Russia or Vietnam, and because factors that affect mobilisation on each of these borders have changed drastically, Thomas Woodrow and Larry Wortzel do not refer extensively to these wars in their examinations of the border contingencies that may need PLA participation. The chapters dealing with the China–North Korea and China–Myanmar border contingencies read more like net assessment studies due to the lack of specific details. Wortzel has taken note of the constraints of operating at high altitude, and the several integrated training exercises that the PLA has conducted in Tibet in the recent past, including, prominently, that ‘the PLA has exercised its conventional missile forces with ground forces under the control of the theatre of operations commander’ (p. 240). He also contends that ‘the Indian Army likely would still be constrained politically’ (p. 232), and that ‘burgeoning economic relations between India and China are unlikely to diminish mutual distrust, at least in the short to medium term’ (p. 233).
Ben Lowsen studies the origin, evolution and metamorphosis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization from an anti-terrorist bias to a more mature and developed modus vivendi among the Central Asian republics, Russia and China. The many exercises conducted, the Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure, and the regular attention paid to the organisation by the respective national leaderships have all contributed to the organisation’s present status. His assessment of China’s involvement in Afghanistan may however be simply wrong or too premature, as the winds of a changing Middle Eastern order singe that country.
Common to the three following chapters on maritime contingencies is the sharp observation of the increased importance and resource availability of the PLA Navy, and a slow but steady coalescing of the different maritime supervisory/security agencies under the China Coastguard. Having faced international opprobrium for employing PLAN ships to face off Japanese Coastguard vessels, the pattern that is evolving seems to mirror that of dealing with an incident of domestic unrest; where on land the police, the Public Security Bureau (PSB) and the PAP have the primary responsibility to handle a situation or incident, at sea it is usually the vessels of the Maritime Safety Administration or the Coastguard which deals with the situation. In both cases, however, the PLA or the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is in the background, facilitating the paramilitary force and providing them the necessary muscle. This pattern, mutatis mutandis, can even be seen in the many incidents of patrol face-offs along the disputed India–China Line of Actual Control, where the patrols are usually troops of the local Border Defense Regiment, operating on a tight leash held by the PLA HQ holding responsibility for the area.
As far as shortcomings go, the lack of detail about Chinese organisations that handle contingency planning is inexplicable; for example, given that PLA and the PAP handles internal security contingencies, who takes the decision to deploy them? Or have these details deliberately been kept out of an open publication?
From the Indian perspective, a few observations are appropriate, which ought to translate into appropriate action.
One, American and Taiwanese think tanks compete for the same resources and the same information about China, but are willing, capable or can be coerced into cooperating on such a venture, and fairly regularly at that. Some authority is clearly driving this effort and a similar effort is required to get Indian think tanks to focus their efforts to cater to actual national needs.
Two, a scan of the endnotes attached to each chapter quickly highlights the fact that a lot of information is indeed available freely to be picked up, digested, analysed and understood. These think tanks are actually researching primary sources to arrive at these conclusions or opinions; clearly language skills are a big asset. A concerted effort in India at increasing Chinese language capability and in widening the base of analysts beyond the present limited set is needed; if this is now initiated, fruition will take 10 to 15 years!
Three, institutional biases and reservations notwithstanding, a conference of this nature offers great opportunities to hone analytical skills and exchange notes in honest academic endeavour. An Indian aim ought to be to create at least one expert on a specific subject about China in each think tank, and then to send this expert to such conferences, to learn and participate.