Learning by Doing The PLA Trains at Home and Abroad Editors: Roy Kamphausen David Lai Travis Tanner Visit our website for other free publication downloads http://www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/ To rate this publication click here. U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE Strategic Studies Institute Book LEARNING BY DOING: THE PLA TRAINS AT HOME AND ABROAD Roy Kamphausen David Lai Travis Tanner Editors November 2012 The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the -De partment of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) publica- tions enjoy full academic freedom, provided they do not disclose classified information, jeopardize operations security, or mis- represent official U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empow- ers them to offer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the interest of furthering debate on key issues. 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Contact SSI by visiting our website at the following address: www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil. ***** The Strategic Studies Institute publishes a monthly e-mail newsletter to update the national security community on the re- search of our analysts, recent and forthcoming publications, and upcoming conferences sponsored by the Institute. Each newslet- ter also provides a strategic commentary by one of our research analysts. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, please subscribe on the SSI website at www.StrategicStudiesInstitute. army.mil/newsletter/. ISBN 1-58487-552-6 ii CONTENTS Foreword ........................................................................v 1. Introduction: PLA Lessons Learned From Increasingly Realistic Exercises ...................1 Roy Kamphausen and Travis Tanner 2. China’s Navy Prepares: Domestic Naval Exercises, 2000-10 ........................................19 Bernard D. Cole 3. PLA Naval Exercises with International Partners.....................................................................81 Michael McDevitt 4. “Controlling the Four Quarters”: China Trains, Equips, and Deploys a Modern, Mobile People’s Armed Police Force .................127 Cortez A. Cooper III 5. Clarity of Intentions: People’s Liberation Army Transregional Exercises to Defend China’s Borders .................................................... 171 Dennis J. Blasko 6. Looking Good on Paper: PLA Participation in the Peace Mission 2010 Multilateral Military Exercise ...................................................213 Daniel M. Hartnett iii 7. PLA Engagement with International Partners: PLA Involvement in International Peace- keeping and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief .......................................................259 Chin-Hao Huang 8. PLA Logistics 2004-11: Lessons Learned in the Field ............................................................297 Abraham M. Denmark 9. The Agony of Learning: The PLA’s Transformation in Military Affairs ....................337 David Lai About the Contributors ............................................385 iv FOREWORD Learning by Doing: The PLA Trains at Home and Abroad is the latest volume in a series on the PLA produced by the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), and the United States Pacific Command (USPACOM). The pa- pers presented here are a timely and critical look at an evolving and expanding Chinese military and provide context for the changes we may yet see as the PLA continues to modernize. As the USPACOM Commander, I seek to better understand China in aspects that further our ability to find common areas of interest, reduce miscalculation, and contribute to regional stability. Greater insight into the PLA is essential to this effort. As the Chinese military matures, grows, and ventures farther from China’s territory, the regional and global implications for the United States and USPACOM, as well as our allies and partners will be complex, yet critical to our understanding of China’s evolving international role and influence. Therefore, accurate and timely assess- ments of the changes taking place within the PLA are essential to understanding how the Chinese are match- ing military power with their broader policy aims. The outstanding scholarship in this jointly-sponsored study by SSI, NBR, and USPACOM is an important contribution toward this end. The judgments in this volume provide unique and valuable insights on how the PLA is adapting its training to its perception of the security environ- ment. This does not just include how it is resourcing, organizing, and training its forces, but also how the PLA thinks about warfare and the threats they cur- rently face. Through participation in international military exercises, as well as peacekeeping operations v (PKO) and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) missions abroad, the PLA is gaining greater experience in carrying out a broader spectrum of mis- sions. For example, the lessons learned from counter- piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden as well as internal, transregional deployment exercises are impacting the way China responds to issues ranging from domestic natural disasters to cooperative security efforts requir- ing the projection and sustainment of military power beyond China’s borders. Monitoring these develop- ments is not only key to our understanding of China’s perceptions of the security environment, but also to identifying opportunities to further develop coopera- tive capacity in the areas of nontraditional security threats—a growing area of cooperation between our two militaries. The outstanding analysis provided by SSI and NBR, will inform the decisions that affect our opera- tions and relations throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Both organizations have again demonstrated their commitment to excellence with the release of this volume, and it is therefore my pleasure to introduce it to you. Learning by Doing: The PLA Trains at Home and Abroad is an essential source for those seeking to understand the changes that are taking place within the Chinese military. But more importantly, it sets the stage and helps us prepare for the opportunities that lie ahead. SAMUEL J. LOCKLEAR III Admiral, USN Commander, U.S. Pacific Command vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: PLA LESSONS LEARNED FROM INCREASINGLY REALISTIC EXERCISES1 Roy Kamphausen Travis Tanner For more than 2 decades, the annual People’s Lib- eration Army (PLA) Conference has been a premier source of original analysis on China’s military devel- opment. Each conference results in an edited volume consisting of the papers presented that year by top PLA scholars.2 This volume represents the 2011-12 it- eration of the event, a workshop titled “Learning by Doing: The PLA Trains at Home and Abroad,” held on February 18, 2012. This year’s event was unique in that it marked the first time the event was held at Ma- rine Corps University (MCU) in Quantico, Virginia. The workshop was convened by The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), the Strategic Studies Insti- tute (SSI) of the U.S. Army War College (USAWC), the United States Pacific Command (USPACOM), and MCU. In an effort to better understand the PLA’s ability to employ its developing capabilities in a variety of potential scenarios, this year’s workshop examined how the PLA learns by doing, specifically through its exercises and noncombat operations at home and overseas, and through key logistical and theoretical developments. In many ways, this year’s workshop was the second installment of an examination of how the PLA has sought to gain experience in the practice 1 of modern warfare despite lacking recent combat ex- perience of its own. Though some Chinese sources assert that the current Gulf of Aden anti-piracy mis- sion involves “combat-like” conditions, most PLA ob- servers cite the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese clash as the last instance of Chinese military involvement in a major armed conflict with a foreign foe. Consequently, the previous volume in the annual series—Chinese Lessons from Other Peoples’ Wars (2011)—examined what the PLA has learned from its observation of the armed conflicts of foreign nations. Key insights included the following: (1) the lessons the PLA learns from foreign conflicts are colored by China’s domestic politics and ideology; (2) most of the lessons learned take place at the high operational and strategic levels of war, we suspect because there is no current tactical or opera- tional context to which they might apply; and, (3) the PLA tends to focus its attention on U.S. military insti- tutions such as USPACOM, both as models for its own development and as sources of information on how it might effectively fight against