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Parshotam Mehra China’s Use of
Military Force: Beyond the Great Wall and the Long March.
Scobell’s thin and very focused volume falls into four parts: the theoretical ‘ Layers of Culture’ followed by the actual use of force majeure in the Mao, Deng and post-Deng eras. The opening gamut offers a lively discussion on China’s cult of defence and the three layers of strategic, civil-military and organisational culture. While the first two are closely inter-linked, the third (viz, organisational culture of armed forces) exerts a significant impact on military doctrines. The study claims to combine all three approaches to gain a more ‘comprehensive understanding’ of China’s propensity to use force. And has selected five cases from the PLA’s span of 50 years, embracing the Mao (1949-mid 1970s), Deng (1978-mid 1990s) and the post-Deng (mid 1990s to the present) eras. The Mao years relate to the war in Korea and India; (1962); the Deng, to the assault on Vietnam (early 1979) and the Tiananmen Square massacre exactly a decade later; and the post- Deng refers to the crisis in the Taiwan Strait. A brief word on the individual crisis discussed. To start with, the intervention in Korea. The author reveals that it was Mao who ‘finally’ issued the formal order for intervention. And while the Premier and foreign minister Zhou Enlai ‘consistently took a hawkish’ view, the military elite showed ‘deep reluctance.’ Mao had persuaded himself that it was the US that had made the first aggressive moves. And here, as later in the war against India, and the Soviet Union (1969), all that Beijing had done was to launch a ‘self defence counter-attack.’ In the case of Vietnam (1979), Beijing’s assault was ‘relatively moderate’ in terms of the spectrum of military options open to it. While both civil and military leaders were ‘divided’ on the merits of the war, Deng carried the day. Scobell repudiates the suggestions that the war had ‘no impact’ on domestic politics and ‘little, if any’ on military affairs; to the contrary, it enabled Deng to claim ‘some measure of success’ in pressing for his political and economic reform. As for the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis, it stands out as ‘largely successful’ in terms of ‘coercive diplomacy’with Beijing achieving most of its goals without resorting to actual warfare. The use of force on the domestic front relates to the PLA restoring law and order in the crisis of the Cultural Revolution. There was ‘considerable reluctance’ to employ it in the first instance and even though the military was ‘far more cohesive and unified’ than the party, it too was badly riven by ‘factionalism.’ The June 3-4 (1989) Tiananmen Square massacre was the result of ‘a deliberate, calculated decision’ by Deng supported by other senior party leaders. The PLA, after ‘initially’ hesitating, later ‘reluctantly’ obeyed. Scobell’s broad conclusions are that the Great Wall is integral to any understanding of Chinese strategic disposition. This enables the political leadership to rationalise virtually any military operation as a defensive action. Associate Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College, Scobell is editor of The Cost of Conflict: the Impact on China of a Future War and has authored several monographs and reports. Characterised by an in-depth research, the book forms part of the Cambridge Modern China series. |
THIS unique and in many
ways path-breaking study of Chinese military behaviour examines Beijing’s
use of military force in Korea (1950), India (1962), Vietnam (1979) and
the Taiwan Strait (1995-96). And nearer home in the course of the
Cultural Revolution (1967) and the Tiananmen Square massacre (1989). It
analysis the Chinese strategic culture that enables the political
leadership to reationalise the use of military force as defensive, no
matter what the actual circumstances. This ‘cult of defence’
combined with changes in the PLA’s military doctrine—and
capabilities— would appear, the study averse, to suggest that China’s
political leaders may in the 21st century use military force ‘more
readily’ than their predessors.