THIRTY-FIVE years after the death of Mao Zedong, is the People's Liberation Army (PLA) still under the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)?
The maiden flight of the PLA's J-20 stealth fighter in January - with a second reportedly done earlier this week - seemed to suggest otherwise. During his January meeting with President Hu Jintao, which occurred just after the January test flight, United States Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said there were 'pretty clear indications' that China's civilian leaders were unaware of the test flight.
Speaking in Tokyo a few days later, Mr Gates warned of a 'disconnect between the military (PLA) and the civilian leadership'.
On the one hand, this should not be grounds for concern. An oft-quoted dictum by Mao still applies: 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the party.'
It is true that more recent Chinese leaders such as former president Jiang Zemin and Mr Hu have had little or no military experience compared with Mao and late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. But they had no problems imposing the will of the CCP on the PLA. During the protracted leadership succession from Mr Deng to Mr Jiang, for example, the influence of the PLA was limited. According to a paper from the US-based National Defence University, Mr Jiang's call in 1998 for the PLA to divest its stakes in commercial activities also happened much faster than expected.
On the other hand, there is some cause for concern if the Chinese military overreaches itself. During the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1995-1996, an unnamed Chinese general told Mr Chas Freeman, a former US assistant secretary of defence, that China did not fear US intervention because American leaders 'care more about Los Angeles than they do about Taiwan'.
In 2005, Major-General Zhu Chenghu warned that China would use nuclear weapons if the US targeted Chinese territory: 'We... will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds... of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.'
Chinese generals have also become more strident in the public sphere. In his best-selling book last year, The China Dream, PLA Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu argued that the country's emergence could risk a war with the US despite Beijing's hope for a 'peaceful rise'.
According to Dr Andrew Scobell, a China watcher, there are two schools of thought on the PLA: One, that it issues hawkish comments that are carefully scripted and coordinated with top political leaders. Two, that the PLA is 'roguish', in that it is controlled with a 'long and loose leash'.
'Both are alarming... but the latter possibility would be the most alarming, because it depicts a military that is no longer tightly controlled by civilian leaders,' he said in a recent paper.
If Dr Scobell's depiction is accurate, a roguish PLA would have two negative effects. First, it could lead to unintended escalation between the US and Chinese militaries.
In 2001, a Chinese fighter jet collided with an American EP-3 surveillance aircraft. Subsequent negotiations between Beijing and Washington over the release of the EP-3 highlighted a lack of coordination and communication between the PLA and its civilian superiors.
Hawkish comments by PLA officers, if not reined in properly by their civilian leaders, could also put pay to China's rhetoric about its 'peaceful rise'.
But from another perspective, a roguish PLA might not be as worrying as it seems. It might well be practising a Chinese calculus of deterrence, as argued by Chinese scholar Allen Whiting. This means issuing hawkish threats to deter foreign or American intervention in Chinese affairs.
Recently, the PLA Daily ran a series of articles that sought to refute core demands made by advocates of political reform, such as the demand for the military to come under the control of the state rather than the CCP. Analysts say this suggests that the party still holds sway over the PLA, while it accedes to the military's demands for budgetary support and the purchase of military systems.
If the US is concerned about a roguish PLA, stepping up military-to-military exchanges is one way to reduce misunderstandings.
Last month, China announced that PLA chief of staff Chen Bingde would visit the US next month. In January, Mr Kurt Campbell, Assistant US Secretary of State, told The Straits Times that Washington was working to establish a strategic dialogue involving civilian and military officials from both sides.
Such dialogues, while laudable, may well have only a limited effect in the short term. Last year, a senior Chinese general had a seafood dinner in San Francisco with a group of academics. Asked whether his 'hostile' views on the US had changed, he said: 'I have visited the US 18 times. Each and every time I come here, my view has been intensified.'
This does not mean that such dialogues would not yield fruit in the long term.
During the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis, US Admiral Joseph Prueher tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to contact his counterparts in the PLA, says Dr Liu Yawei, a China analyst at the Atlanta-based Carter Centre. Close military-to-military ties also gave US officers an opportunity to talk to their Egyptian counterparts during the country's political crisis in January.
'I believe that when the frequency of such exchanges goes up, there will eventually be better understanding,' he said.
Strategic dialogues are never fast-wins. They take time and effort. But the alternative of military forces - roguish or otherwise - escalating conflict is far worse.
By William Choong, Senior Writer
From the Straits Times
williamc@sph.com.sg
