China: Contemporary Political, Economic, and International Affairs

2. Uncertainty, Insecurity, and China’s Military Power

2. Uncertainty, Insecurity, and China’s Military Power September 1997 paul h. b. godwin W hen Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978, he inherited a defense establishment that was little more than a lumbering giant. In the 20 years following the Sino-Soviet split of 1959–1960 and Moscow’s termination of military assistance, China’s military power had eroded into obsolescence. The country’s defense industrial base was incapable of producing anything more than copies of Soviet designs from the 1950s, and the defense research and development (R&D) infrastructure was equally backward. Even the nuclear weapons program, developed at great cost and to the neglect of conventional weaponry, had produced only crude strategic systems, including a single nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine that had yet to launch a missile. Moreover, during this time the Chinese armed forces had become intensely involved in Mao Zedong’s domestic political campaigns, especially the Cultural Revolution, and were no longer an effective combat force, a reality demonstrated by their poor performance in the 1979 incursion into Vietnam. Deng Xiaoping’s long-term objective for the military reforms he introduced in 1979 was to build a self-sustaining defense establishment so that China could not be intimidated by any military power, and Beijing’s foreign policies would not be constrained by military weakness. Rebuilding military strength, however, was not given first priority in Deng’s strategy for modernizing China. In the “four modernizations” that defined his program for transforming China into a nation capable of assuming a leading role in world politics, renovating national defense came fourth, after the modernization of agriculture, industry, and science and technology. 27 Apprehension in Asia and the United States that China’s military power was becoming potentially dangerous to the region did not emerge until the cold war’s end. Four major developments in Beijing’s defense policies intersected to create the image of potential peril. First, in 1985 Beijing transformed its national military strategy: China’s armed forces were directed no longer to prepare for a major, possibly nuclear, war with the Soviet Union but for local, limited wars on China’s borders. Second, annual double -digit percentage increases in Beijing’s defense budgets began in 1989 (and continue), sustained by the dramatic growth in China’s economy, which suggested a potential change in priorities. Third, the armament and military technology linkage established with the Soviet Union in 1990, and upheld by Russia after the Soviet Union’s disintegration, was viewed as potentially revitalizing China’s defense industrial base in addition to providing advanced weaponry. Finally, in the early 1990s, improvements in China’s conventional forces were joined by the development of a new series of short-range, tactical battlefield ballistic missiles and land- and submarine -based strategic missiles. These four elements converged as China’s military security, in Beijing’s own assessment, became more assured than at any time in the previous 150 years. Even as the threat to China’s security diminished, Beijing demonstrated an assertive, if not aggressive, nationalism in its approach to territorial claims in the South and East China Seas. An assertive, nationalistic China, facing no major military threat but with growing military muscle bolstered by a rapidly expanding economy and increasing military expenditures , raised serious questions about Beijing’s long-term international intentions. Beijing’s belligerent use of military exercises to intimidate Taiwan in the summer of 1995 and the spring of 1996, leading to United States deployment of two aircraft carrier battle groups near Taiwan, served only to exacerbate these concerns. China’s Military Strength in Context Military power is relative, not absolute; any evaluation of a state’s military strength must be comparative and placed in context. Despite widespread apprehension in Asia and the United States that Beijing’s military modernization programs could overturn East Asia’s balance of power early in the twenty-first century, China’s military leadership has no such confidence. To 28 paul h. b. godwin the contrary, it looks forward to the twenty-first century with uncertainty and a sense of insecurity, knowing that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as all four services and branches are collectively named, will enter the next century with armaments and equipment just beginning to incorporate technologies from the 1970s and 1980s. It is not that Beijing perceives an immediate military threat to China, but that in an uncertain future with...