Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949 (review)

The rapidly increasing capabilities of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) have stimulated interest in the PLA's organization, structure, and history. Despite this interest, few scholars have conducted operational-level studies—histories that examine the PLA's application of the operational art at the campaign and tactical levels of warfare, as distinct from strategic-level histories that examine why China has in the past decided to wage war or enter into conflicts. Within the People's Republic of China (PRC), military histories tended to be hagiographic rather than analytical. The leaders of the Communist revolution receive extravagant praise for their brilliant strategic insights. The commanders and commissars who were initially praised but later fell from political grace either disappear from the narrative or are criticized for blunders that cost the lives of many brave Communist fighters.

This shortcoming has begun to diminish. Several veteran military commanders have published their memoirs, which although typically slanted toward the heroic often contain useful information. The PLA field armies have compiled their histories, and researchers at military academies have made analytical studies of different campaigns. In order to make this information known to those who do not read Chinese, the Center for Naval Analyses convened a conference of leading specialists in June 1999 to discuss these issues. Eight themes emerged: operational planning; command and control; the political-military nexus; operational design, combat tactics, and performance; the role of Mao Zedong; operational scale and fighting typology; and deterrence.

In general, the authors credit PLA leaders with careful planning and preparation for military operations, with Thomas Robinson's chapter on the Sino-Soviet border clash of March 1969 a significant exception. Studies of command and control reveal the existence of significant tensions between central headquarters and field command. The authors agree that PLA combat was integrated with the central government's larger political purposes. Larry Wortzel's study of the Korean War concludes that the transformation of the PLA's combat tactics was relatively swift and remarkably successful. Other chapters credit the Chinese military with adaptability and doctrinal flexibility: The navy, for example, discarded the Soviet "Young School" of naval doctrine, and the air force jettisoned the USSR's air combat doctrine. The authors do not consider the question of whether this represents artful adaptability or was simply a visceral reaction to the revulsion against all things Soviet at the time. Mao Zedong's central role as military theorist par excellence is affirmed by Paul Godwin's chapter, which argues that present-day PLA doctrine is rooted in Mao's writings, many of which date from the 1930s. The PLA's performance has varied, from the successful Sino-Indian confrontation of 1962 to the much less successful experiences during the Sino-Soviet border clashes of March 1969 and the war with Vietnam in 1979. With regard to war-fighting and deterrence, the editors distinguish two poles of interpretation. They characterize one as "the PLA and Mao mess things up" and the other as "in the long run, since 1949, the PLA has successfully deterred surrounding powers from invading China proper, fighting in China proper, or engaging in hostilities too near the Chinese periphery." This is a strange dichotomy. Despite Chinese leaders' intermittent paranoia about foreign powers seeking to surround China, one must ask whether any neighboring power has even briefly considered invading the PRC. During the 1980 presidential campaign, a former U.S. intelligence official remarked that the PRC's chief defense was its indigestibility. The country's military has improved enormously in the intervening decades, but his statement remains valid.

The contributors, probably reflecting the Chinese sources they draw on, tend to present a highly favorable view of the PLA as an agile, adaptable, brave, and politically reliable army. Robinson is virtually alone among the chapter writers in having anything critical to say about the PLA. He contends that Mao badly miscalculated in 1969. Arrogant to...