Chinese Military Theory

What changes in China's modern military policy reveal about military organizations and strategySince the 1949 Communist Revolution, China has devised nine different military strategies, which the People's Liberation Army (PLA) calls "strategic guidelines." What accounts for these numerous changes? Active Defense offers the first systematic look at China's military strategy from the mid-twentieth century to today. Exploring the range and intensity of threats that China has faced, M. Taylor Fravel illuminates the nation's past and present military goals and how China sought to achieve them, and offers a rich set of cases for deepening the study of change in military organizations.Drawing from diverse Chinese-language sources, including memoirs of leading generals, military histories, and document collections that have become available only in the last two decades, Fravel shows why transformations in military strategy were pursued at certain times and not others. He focuses on the military strategies adopted in 1956, 1980, and 1993-when the PLA was attempting to wage war in a new kind of way-to show that China has pursued major change in its strategic guidelines when there has been a significant shift in the conduct of warfare in the international system and when China's Communist Party has been united.Delving into the security threats China has faced over the last seven decades, Active Defense offers a detailed investigation into how and why states alter their defense policies.

Although inter-state tensions have generally been easing after the Cold War, military power remains a dominant factor in Asian regional politics. As China, operating the world's largest army, grows stronger, there are ongoing debates over the implications for Asia's regional security. This book argues that it is imperative to look beyond the empirical observations and conventional materialist reading of Chinese military development to understand its dynamics and directions in doctrinal terms and put it in a readiness context for evaluation. Military doctrine has long been under-studied and is often treated as a subject separate from force development. But, as this study contends, this factor is necessary for interpreting the making and purposes of China's military power because it forms the intellectual foundation of military structural and hardware development. When loaded with political rhetoric, it also communicates to us the intended uses of the military power. The role of doctrine is reinforced in the context of military readiness, which defines what for and how the army is getting ready. Force development is evaluated in structural, operational and directional terms. The importance of this analytical framework based on military doctrine and readiness is demonstrated in a survey of the evolutionof Chinese military doctrine and force development. As the Chinese People's Liberation Army has continued to adjust its military structure and operation to follow the doctrinal lead, its switches between the doctines of local war and total war have seen corresponding changes to the emphasis between operational and structural readiness.

This monograph examines Chinese warfare and suggests that three and a half millennia of Chinese military history have produced a distinctive and enduring Chinese Way Of War. While the art and science of war in China have evolved considerably throughout its history, the characteristics and philosophies of its style of warfare contain some propensities that endure from antiquity to the present. They are: The Chinese military orientation focuses more on the strategic and operational levels of war than the tactical. The Chinese prefer strategic maneuver warfare to attritional or other forms of warfare. Chinese warfare emphasizes the importance of shaping operations, the arrangement of the conditions of the war, campaign, or battlefield in one’s favor before initiating combat. Finally, deception and unorthodox warfare play a leading role in Chinese martial philosophy and conduct of war. These four propensities of the Chinese way of war are general trends that emerge when the entire span of Chinese warfare is broadly considered. Rooted in the philosophy and theories of the great military classics of ancient Chinese, these propensities provide continuities in the war fighting styles, traditions, and preferences of Chinese armies throughout history. While none of the four propensities of Chinese warfare are practiced by China alone, when aggregated they form a broad approach to war fighting that is unlike that of any other country in the world. The distinctiveness of the Chinese way of war is a product of China’s unique cultural traditions, religious and social philosophies, and historical evolution.

China's strides towards the creation of a formidable military posture, backed by strong economic growth, demonstrate a resolve to assert its claim towards becoming an Asian superpower. By opting to showcase its military prowess to the world, the Chinese armed forces have signalled that they have come a long way from what was essentially a rustic and bucolic 'Red Army' that waged a 'People's War' six decades ago. The modernisation programme undertaken by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) can be interpreted as the foundation of deterrence to attain the objectives of military strategy. Today, the Chinese armed forces are preparing to fight small-scale, high-intensity, regional combat and military operations in the future. At the same time, China seeks to deter or prevent their outbreak decisively through the possession of an adequate deterrent force and the determination to use that force. Robust military modernisation of the PLA represents a contrasting facet to the tall claims made by China, in so far as its 'peaceful rise' campaign is concerned. It is difficult to reconcile these rather opposing, while equally reinforcing, ideas. As a consequence, the entire debate on the impending "China threat" (Zhongguo weixie) theory has progressively gained significance within the Asian continent and beyond.