THE LESSONS OF HISTORY: THE CHINESE PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY AT 75 Edited by Laurie Burkitt Andrew Scobell Larry M. Wortzel July 2003 ***** The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This report is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited. ***** Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 122 Forbes Ave., Carlisle, PA 17013-5244. Copies of this report may be obtained from the Publications Office by calling (717) 245-4133, FAX (717) 245-3820, or via the Internet at [email protected] ***** Most 1993, 1994, and all later Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) monographs are available on the SSI Homepage for electronic dissemination. SSI’s Homepage address is: http:// www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/index.html ***** The Strategic Studies Institute publishes a monthly e-mail news- letter to update the national security community on the research of our analysts, recent and forthcoming publications, and upcoming conferences sponsored by the Institute. Each newsletter also pro- vides a strategic commentary by one of our research analysts. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, please let us know by e-mail at [email protected] or by calling (717) 245-3133. ISBN 1-58487-126-1 ii CONTENTS Foreword Ambassador James R. Lilley . v Part I: Overview. 1 1. Introduction: The Lesson Learned by China’s Soldiers Laurie Burkitt, Andrew Scobell, and Larry M. Wortzel . 3 2. China’s Defense Establishment: The Hard Lessons of Incomplete Modernization Paul H. B. Godwin . 15 Part II: The Services . 59 3. PLA Ground Forces Lessons Learned: Experience and Theory Dennis J. Blasko. 61 4. PLA Air Force, 1949-2002: Overview and Lessons Learned Kenneth W. Allen . 89 5. The People’s Liberation Army Navy after Half a Century: Lessons Learned in Beijing Bernard D. Cole . 157 6. The People’s Liberation Army and China’s Space and Missile Development: Lessons from the Past and Prospects for the Future Mark A. Stokes . 193 Part III: The Campaigns. 251 7. How Beijing Evaluates Military Campaigns: An Initial Assessment Ron Christman . 253 8. From Surprise to Stalemate: What the People’s Liberation Army Learned from the Korean War — A Half-Century Later John J. Tkacik, Jr. 293 9. Concentrating Forces and Audacious Action: PLA Lessons from the Sino-Indian War Larry M. Wortzel. 327 10. The 1979 Chinese Campaign in Vietnam: Lessons Learned Edward C. O’Dowd and John F. Corbett, Jr. 353 11. The Lessons of the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis: Developing a New Strategy Toward the United States and Taiwan Arthur S. Ding . 379 iii Part IV: Domestic Deployments and Civil-Military Relations . 403 12. Lessons Learned from the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Massacre June Teufel Dreyer. 405 13. Seventy-five Years of Civil-Military Relations: Lessons Learned Andrew Scobell . 427 About the Contributors . 451 iv FOREWORD With the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China celebrating their 75th anniversary on August 1, 2002, it only seemed appropriate and timely to take stock of the world’s largest military. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has officially been in existence for three-quarters of a century, and its history is one filled with turmoil and warfare. One weekend in September 2002, a group of PLA specialists gathered at Carlisle Barracks, the home of the U.S. Army War College, to assess what lessons China’s soldiers had drawn from the history of their own armed forces. This volume constitutes the final product of months of extensive research by the individual authors and hours of intense discussion at the 3-day conference by approximately 50 participants. The conference was sponsored jointly by the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the U.S. Army War College. It is with great pleasure that I commend this book to anyone with a serious interest in the Chinese military. Ambassador James R. Lilley Senior Fellow American Enterprise Institute v PART I: OVERVIEW CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: THE LESSON LEARNED BY CHINA’S SOLDIERS Laurie Burkitt Andrew Scobell Larry M. Wortzel The title of this volume, “The Lessons of History: The Chinese People’s Liberation Army at 75,” captures well the overall theme of the twelve chapters that follow. The primary focus is not on summarizing the lessons that analysts or scholars from outside China have learned when they look back at the past three-quarters of a century of Chinese military history. Rather, the emphasis of this volume is to assess key lessons that the top ranks of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have drawn from their own military’s 75- year history. The reader should be clear at the outset: this volume is not a comprehensive up-to-date overview of the state of the PLA; nor is it a comprehensive 75-year history of the Chinese communist military. Anyone seeking these will have to look elsewhere.1 The primary value of this volume, we believe, is that it provides insights into what Chinese military leaders themselves take from their past. Learning Chinese Lessons and Avoiding Pitfalls of Analysis. The PLA is certainly not monolithic and to attribute a single, collective point of view is foolish, if not futile. Nevertheless, the contributors to this volume attempt to distill lessons learned by the Chinese military as an institution. However, in many cases, it is impossible to assert with 100 percent reliability what precise lessons have been gleaned by the PLA. Wherever possible, the contributors have used Chinese published source material originating from within what Paul Godwin calls “China’s Defense Establishment.” Moreover, it should be noted that the analyses in this volume are based entirely on open source materials. There are challenges for any outsider researching a military organization, and there are particular challenges in studying an 3 opaque institution like the PLA.2 Since analysts are not always privy to the classified studies conducted for the internal use of the Chinese military, there is the ever-present danger of dutifully parroting the propaganda published in official works produced for public and/or foreign consumption. Often the researcher is left to read between the lines, discerning what is left unsaid or taking the logic of the official printed lesson a step further. These challenges can be partially overcome by supplementing open sources with internally circulated materials wherever possible and through interviews and firsthand observation. For the non-Chinese researcher, another challenge to be overcome in studying China’s armed forces is that of mirror imaging. Many PLA analysts today have served or are serving in the militaries of their own countries and still others work in the defense intellectual communities.3 There can be a tendency to presume that all militaries think and operate more or less like one’s own does. Yet, the kinds of lessons the U.S. Army may draw from a particular experience may be very different from those that might be drawn by the PLA’s ground forces. Fortunately, mirror imaging is kept under control because most specialists have had to immerse themselves in Chinese language, history, and culture often for a decade or more. Many have spent months--if not years--of their professional lives in China with day-to-day interaction with the PLA. Lessons or Reactions? Individual or Institutional? Learned or Lost? What is a lesson? As conference participant Wendy Frieman cautioned, lesson should not be conflated with reaction. Soldiers and strategists often have gut reactions. But these are not the same as an individual or an institution learning a lesson. Even if an individual battlefield commander has learned a lesson, that does not mean an army as a whole has absorbed a lesson. Dennis Vetock, in his history of U.S. Army Lesson Learning, observes: An army learns lessons after it incorporates the conclusions derived from experience into institutional form. Out of the commander’s experience may come a lesson, and from that lesson may come new or adapted doctrine or perhaps dissemination of potentially useful information. Only after its institutionalization 4 can the lesson be correctly described in the past tense as a lesson learned. Until then it remains just a lesson or usable experience, a semantic distinction that few fully appreciate.4 Moreover, just as lessons can be learned, they can also be “lost.”5 In short, for a military lesson to be truly “learned,” it must result in a real change or transformation and this kind of thoroughgoing institutional change can take years, if not longer. Indeed, fundamental change does not come quickly or easily to a large bureaucratic organization such as a military institution.6 Military Modernization: Lessons and Frustrations. The history of the PLA in the eyes of its 2.5 million service members is a glorious one of heroic struggle and triumph over insurmountable obstacles. A fundamental lesson learned by the PLA is that the weak can triumph over the strong. No matter how daunting the difficulties and how superior the foe appears to be, ultimate victory is possible if selfless Chinese soldiers and civilians doggedly pursue their tasks. After all, China built an atomic bomb, a daunting undertaking,7 and the PLA Navy and Air Force developed from extremely humble beginnings, each officially established as a separate service in 1949. While the PLA remains an overwhelmingly “muddy boots” military, its air and naval arms have made significant progress in recent decades in terms of quality of equipment, caliber of personnel, and operational capabilities.