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Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

Aside from these four mentioned in this article, should other Southeast Asian nations such as Vietnam and the Philippines resurrect a form of SEATO? Meanwhile, ASEAN deals more with political-economic issues than security issues.

How to Push Back against an Aggressive China: Enter the 'Quad'

James Jay Carafano
February 5, 2015

Face it. China is a problem. Nations across the Pacific and Asia are looking for constructive solutions. And that's the promise of a Quad Dialogue - a forum for developing cooperative, synchronized policies among India, Australia, Japan and the United States.

Start with the facts. China's economic policies are increasingly mercantilist. It is developing military capabilities to exclude others from operating in Asia. Beijing is no friend of democracy. From a Chinese perspective, all these initiatives might make sense: they are reconstructing a world that looks like the Middle Kingdom. The rest of the world, however, would probably prefer to live in the 21st century.

China is going to be China. That's not going to change anytime soon. So unless the nations that have the power to punish bad behavior and take constructive steps, the neighborhood is going to get worse for everybody.


First, the dialogue should focus exclusively on two issues - ensuring the freedom of the commons (air, seas, space and cyberspace) and establishing a common approach to resolving territorial disputes.

Second, the dialogue ought to remain a dialogue.         

Third, the Quad dialogue shouldn't act like an exclusive club.

Fourth, the objective of the Quad is simple: to promote a sustainable, liberal order that makes sense, that does not advantage some nations at the expense of others.

Fifth, the Quad works only if its members are voices worth listening to.

Sixth, be prepared to argue with China.



National Interest
 
S.M.A. said:
Retaliation for Canada's accusations of Chinese state-supported hackers infiltrating Canadian federal computer networks?
Updated: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 20:40:28 GMT | By The Canadian Press, cbc.ca

Canadians investigated in China for stealing state secrets, Chinese state media report

Chinese media say two Canadian nationals are being investigated for suspected theft of state secrets.

The allegations relate to China's military and defence research, but the reports gave no other details.

The suspects are identified in Chinese state media as Kevin Garratt and Julia Dawn Garratt.

Canada's Foreign Affairs Department said it's aware of reports two Canadians have been detained in China and is trying get more information. The department said consular officials are ready to provide assistance.

Last week, Canada blamed Chinese hackers for infiltrating computers at the National Research Council of Canada, something the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa denied.

(...EDITED)
CBC

The latest ....
China has detained a Canadian man on suspicion of stealing and prying into state secrets but released his wife, also a Canadian, from custody on bail after holding the couple without charge for months, China's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

The decision to detain Kevin Garratt, who ran a Christian coffee shop with his wife, paves the way for his formal arrest and possible prosecution in a case that has strained ties between Canada and China.

Beijing is widening a crackdown on foreign Christian groups along its sensitive border with North Korea.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Garratt had been formally detained on suspicion of the theft, citing the National Security Agency of Dandong, a city in the northeastern province of Liaoning, where the Garratts had lived for years.

"The relevant Chinese authorities are dealing with the case in accordance with the law, and maintaining the legal rights and interests of both people in accordance with the law," Hong told a regular news briefing.

Julia Garratt was released but barred from leaving mainland China for one year, the family said in a statement. Kevin Garratt has been moved to a "more formal detention center at an unknown location", the family added ....
 
Even if this fleet is deemed unlikely, individual PLA-N warships have been joining the antipiracy patrols off Somalia/the Gulf of Aden. Furthermore, Chinese warships have made port calls with South Asian allies such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka, if I can recall correctly. Two more client states of China in the region are Myanmar/Burma and Bangladesh, both of which use Chinese equipment in their military forces. There is also said to be a Chinese naval listening station in one of the Andaman Islands owned by Myanmar to keep tabs on Indian naval movements.

Defense News

Experts: Chinese '4th Fleet' Appears Unlikely

TAIPEI — Despite reports that China is planning a fourth fleet for the Indian Ocean, India doesn't appear to be losing any sleep over it.

Unconfirmed reports from Chinese-language articles and Western defense industry reports suggest China would build a fleet command headquarters at Sanya on Hainan Island.

Yet the main obstacles to such a strategy include diplomacy, logistics, and reliability, despite conducting successful, but limited, anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia, experts say.

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When my family took one of those local tours that went around the Rockies and passed through Kelowna a number of years ago, nearly the whole bus was full of Chinese tourists...

Reuters

Chinese investors target hotels, wineries, mineral water in British Columbia

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Liu represents what real estate agents, lawyers and immigration consultants say is a transformative shift in where wealthy Asian individuals and families, primarily from mainland China, place their money in British Columbia, the West Coast province.

Vancouver has been a top destination for Asian immigrants for decades, helping make it Canada's most expensive housing market and one consistently ranked as North America's least affordable. Houses and luxury condos in the Vancouver area have been the investment of choice for both well-heeled new arrivals and China-based investors putting money abroad.

But with the Vancouver market looking pricey, many of these investors are seeking other opportunities. They range from hotels and golf courses targeting Chinese tourists to berry farms, mineral water sources, and wineries that export to Asia.

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Taipei sending a signal to Beijing by appointing a military official to the political body that deals with mainland China?

Reuters

Taiwan appoints military official as new China affairs chief

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A military official and former deputy minister of foreign affairs was named on Monday as the head of Taiwan's China policy-making body. The previous chief announced his resignation last week.

Andrew Hsia, currently the Deputy Minister of National Defense, will become Minister of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), which handles cross-strait policy with its Chinese counterpart, China's Taiwan Affairs Office.

"Hsia has extensive administrative experience and policy-implementation capabilities," a statement on the website of Taiwan's executive branch said. "[He] will continue to promote the development of cross-strait relations."

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The East China Sea and a possible conflict with Japan may also be likely, aside from the tensions with other neighbours over the South China Sea mentioned below:

Inquirer (Philippines newspaper)

US Navy intel officer says China gearing for war

Jun Medina

SAN FRANCISCO — China is flexing its muscles and preparing for military conflict in Asia, the outgoing intelligence chief of the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet recently warned.

The warning came amid Beijing’s feverish reclamation efforts in disputed reefs and islets in the South China Sea
that analysts said could be converted into naval and air force bases to project its military might and dominate China’s smaller neighbors.

The strategic trend lines indicate the Communist Party of China is not only ‘rejuvenating’ itself for internal stability purposes, but has been and continues to prepare to use military force,” Navy Capt. James E. Fanell said during a speech January 31 before more than 100 guests, including several admirals, at Pearl Harbor.

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The idea of social control to the level of family planning raises its ugly head again, only this time as a response to the previous "top down" one child policy. Other nations and regions that have tried to halt demographic decline tend to use incentives such as tax breaks, the example of Romania demonstrates that using force has negative unintended consequences. This also leads to another interesting question. Since wealthy nations tend to have fewer children (and the costs of raising children tend to rise to the extent that having large families is difficult), will rising Chinese wealth push family sizes down in the same way that happened in Europe and North America?:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-official-wants-to-force-couples-to-have-second-child-2015-02-13

China official wants to force couples to have second child

Published: Feb 15, 2015 5:23 p.m. ET
By
LAURA HE

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — After more than 30 years of imposing a one-child policy, China is facing a dilemma of rapid aging and serious gender imbalances. Now one of the nation’s birth-control officials is suggesting going the opposite way and forcing couples to have a second child.

Despite the relaxation of one-child policy last year, the expected baby boom failed to appear. Under the new policy, couples may have a second child if either was an only child, but only 9% of eligible families had applied to do so as of the end of 2014, according to statistics from the national birth-control authority.

While forcing people to have children could prove more difficult than forbidding them to do so, this is exactly what Mei Zhiqiang, deputy head of the birth-control bureau in Shanxi province and a Standing Committee member of the province’s political advisory body, has suggested.

“For the prosperity of our nation and the happiness of us and our children, we should make a serious effort to adjust the demographic structure and make our next generation have two children through policy and system design,” Mei said, according to various media reports.

The decades-old one-child policy has skewed China’s population older, as well as resulted in far more boys than girls, due to some couples seeking to make sure their only child would be male. The aging problem is weighing on China’s pension system, while the gender imbalance has made it hard for some men to find wives.

As a result, Mei said in his proposal to the provincial political advisory body earlier this year, the mere relaxation of the one-child policy isn’t enough, and two-child policy should be enforced.

The remarks have triggered public uproar in China, with the Shanghai-based Guangming Daily website publishing a commentary on Friday, referring to the idea as reflecting “a horrible mindset” and inspiring feelings of “ferocious [government] control.”

Separately, a report on the news portal of Sohu.com SOHU, +0.53%  , noted that Romania tried just such a policy during the 1960s, in which the Communist leadership banned all abortion and birth control and forced women to bear a certain number of children.

The result of the Romanian program was “a disaster,” the report said, prompting a spike in infant mortality, the deaths of many women in underground abortion clinics, and the shooting deaths of others who tried to escape from the country rather than bear children at the behest of the state.
 
An extended-range version of the Badger bomber in Chinese service:

Xi Jinping visit reveals H-6 bomber details

IHS Jane's 360
Xi visited a bomber unit outside the city of Xi'an operating three variants of the H-6 that have been in production since the late 1990s. They included the H-6H, which entered service in the late 1990s and is armed with two optically guided YJ-63/KD-63 land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs).

Also seen was the H-6M, which entered service in 2007 equipped with four wing pylons plus new electronic warfare and missile approach warning systems. The H-6M is armed with two KD-20/K-AKD-20 1,500-2,500 km range LACMs.

<snipped>

Emerging in prototype form in 2007, the H-6K is the most radically modified variant, replacing its glass nose with a large solid nose housing a large radar and new electro-optical targeting pod. Its use of two Russian-made 12-ton thrust D-30-KP2 turbofans and lighter-weight composites have reportedly extended its range by 30% to a combat radius of 3,500 km.

p1631176.jpg

The H-6K now serves in at least two PLAAF bomber regiments. (Chinese internet)
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1631174_-_main.jpg

Chinese leader Xi Jinping's pre-New Year visit to a PLAAF bomber regiment provided the first full view of the cockpit of an XAC H-6K. Source: Via CCTV
 
Hong Kong's party loyalists seeking to curb the freedoms of their neighbours back in the territory:

Reuters

Hong Kong delegates to China's parliament seek mainland security laws to counter protests

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Two Hong Kong delegates to China's parliament are pushing to implement mainland security laws months after pro-democracy protesters shut down major parts of the Chinese-controlled city, broadcaster RTHK said on Sunday.

The last time Hong Kong tried to pass national security legislation was in 2003 when half a million people took to the streets, a key lawmaker withdrew his support and the government was forced to withdraw its proposal.

Stanley Ng, chairman of the pro-Beijing Federation of Trade Unions, said his proposal was triggered by the so-called "Occupy Central" protests, Hong Kong's failure to pass its own national security laws and its lack of laws addressing foreign intervention and secession.

A second Hong Kong delegate to China's rubber-stamp National People's Congress, Peter Wong, said he supported the proposal, RTHK said.

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First the Gripen deal was nixed. Next came the Fencers rumours. Now a joint project?

Defense News

Argentina, China Could Jointly Develop Fighters

TAIPEI — London's successful blocking of the Gripen fighter sale to Argentina appears to have done little to stop Buenos Aires' determination to replace its aging attack and fighter fleet. Nor has it halted its threats to use force to "liberate" the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands from British control.

In October, Argentina's Defense Minister Agustin Rossi announced plans to procure 14 Saab Gripen fighters to replace its single-engine Dassault Mirage III/5, which saw combat during the 1982 Falklands War.

However, London quickly killed the deal
. When that was nixed, Argentine's President Cristina Kirchner traveled to Beijing, Feb. 2-5, and announced Argentina and China were creating a working group to facilitate the transfer of a variety of military equipment, including fighters. To further sweeten the pot, China takes Argentina's position on the Falkland Islands and has compared the dispute to China's sovereignty claims over disputed islands in the East and South China Seas.

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More on Chinese developments in Hypersonic "boost-glide" weapons:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/02/china-and-usa-working-on-mach-10.html

China and USA working on mach 10+ hypersonic weapons

China's hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), called WU-14 by the Pentagon, was launched into space by an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) booster, after which it returned to the atmosphere to glide at up to Mach 10. The test was conducted within China, says the defense ministry in Beijing. On Jan. 19, another object was test-launched from the same space base at Taiyuan, says analyst Richard Fisher of the Washington-based International Assessment and Strategy Center. The Jan. 9 test was first detailed by Bill Gertz of the Washington Free Beacon.

China became the third country after the Russian Federation and the United States to have successfully tested a hypersonic delivery vehicle able to carry nuclear warheads at a speed above Mach 10 - or 12,359 kilometers per hour (7,675 mph). China is also believed to be developing a hypersonic scramjet version that can be launched from air or ground.

Prompt Global Strike (PGS) is a United States military effort to develop a system that can deliver a precision conventional weapon strike anywhere in the world within one hour. A PGS system could also be useful during a nuclear conflict, potentially replacing nuclear weapons against 30 percent of targets. The PGS program encompasses numerous technologies, including conventional surface-launched rockets and air-launched hypersonic missiles, although no specific PGS system has yet been finalized.

Hypersonic missiles would be better at avoiding conventional anti-ballistic missiles. Normal rockets descend through the atmosphere on a predictable ballistic trajectory - their high speeds makes intercepting them extremely difficult. By the late 1980s, however, several countries began to develop interceptor missiles designed to destroy ballistic RVs. A hypersonic glider like the HGV could pull-up after reentering the atmosphere and approach its target in a relatively flat glide, lessening the time it can be detected, fired at, or (if the initial attack failed) reengaged. Gliding makes it more maneuverable and extends its range.

A vehicle like the WU-14 could be fitted to various Chinese ballistic missiles, such as the DF-21 medium-range missile (rumored to be called DF-26 with the HGV payload), and the DF-31 and DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles, extending their ranges from 2,000 km (1,200 mi) to 3,000 km (1,900 mi) and 8,000 km (5,000 mi) to 12,000 km (7,500 mi) respectively. Analysts suspect that the WU-14 will first be used in shorter-range roles as an anti-ship missile and for other tactical purposes to address the problem of hitting a moving target with a ballistic missile. Long-term goals may include deterrence of U.S. missile capabilities with the prospect of strategic bombardment against America, or other countries. With conventional interceptor missiles having difficulty against targets with late detection and maneuvering while traveling faster than Mach 5 (the WU-14 reenters the atmosphere at Mach 10), the U.S. may place more importance on developing directed-energy weapons as a countermeasure.

Chinese research papers have begun to synthesize discussions strategy and foreign weapons systems into what used to be purely technology-based studies. Second, interactions with People’s Liberation Army researchers confirm that such shifts are occurring. Third, these trends also emerge in scientific papers that explore China’s own pursuit of boostglide systems (rocket-launched gliders that travel in the upper atmosphere at hypersonic speeds) and scramjet engine designs (variants of ramjet air breathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow), when discussing prompt global strike advances These studies demonstrate Chinese efforts to master both supersonic and hypersonic propulsion. In doing so, they combine hypersonic and boost-glide technologies, when modeling trajectories with hypersonic and scramjet systems.11 In essence, Chinese experts are seeking to recombine technologies to create new systems. Also on view is the cross-domain nature of Chinese interest, with a marked focus on development of space, maritime, and nuclear domains, as well as cyber, among other means, to undermine similar U.S. systems. Overall, these studies provide insights into how and why China is not only seeking to pursue similar systems and advances, but also to develop them beyond the scope of existing U.S. capabilities.

SOURCES - DARPA, Wikipedia, Aviation Week, Defining the Spear: Chinese Interpretations of PGS
 
The climax of Pres. Xi`s anti-corruption drive?

Source: Reuters

'Stay tuned' as China readies to publish corruption confessions

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's ruling Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog has opened a new front in its campaign against corruption, announcing it will publish confessions by corrupt officials to warn and educate others.

President Xi Jinping has vowed to target high-ranking "tigers" as well as lowly "flies" in his anti-corruption drive, and has pledged to deepen the most sweeping campaign against graft in years.

"Behind every corruption case lies the shadow of a lost model of power, behind every book of repentance hides the remorse of self-blame and self-hate," the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said on its website late on Wednesday.

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Watch for more of the "Four Comprehensives," as outlined in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the South China Morning Post:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1723189/state-media-starts-promotion-xi-jinpings-political-theory-four
logo_scmp.gif

China starts massive promotion of Xi Jinping’s ‘four comprehensives’ political theory
State leader's 'Four Comprehensives' framework to governing China gets extensive news coverage

Teddy Ng and Mandy Zuo

UPDATED : Thursday, 26 February, 2015

State media has given widespread coverage to President Xi Jinping's political theory ahead of the national parliamentary session, advancing his vision for governing China.

The Communist Party's official mouthpiece People's Daily devoted a 2,000-character front-page editorial to the "Four Comprehensives" theory that Xi has advocated since he came to power two years ago.

The theory refers to "comprehensively" building a moderately prosperous society, deepening reform, governing the country according to rule by law, and enforcing strict party discipline.

Mainland media has given extensive coverage to the "Chinese dream" - a term Xi coined shortly after he came to power - and the latest elaboration of the four comprehensives reinforces a tradition of party leaders cementing their ideas into theories.

Though the catchphrases are often vaguely defined, they are cited by cadres at all levels to pledge their support to the party's policies and are seen as an attempt by leaders to establish their legacy.

Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao introduced his "scientific outlook on development" as the party's guiding socio-economic principle. Former president Jiang Zemin introduced his "three represents" theory, referring to social productive forces, cultural development and the fundamental interests of the majority, in 2000. Both Hu and Jiang's theories are enshrined in the nation's constitution.

State broadcaster CCTV featured the People's Daily editorial as its main news programme's fifth item, while the full editorial - the first of five to be published - was also run by Xinhua and local party newspapers around the nation.

Xi first mentioned the "Four Comprehensives" theory in a visit to Jiangsu province in December, and said the first step in the strategy was "achieving the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people", the editorial said.

The theory arose from "the aspirations of the masses" and was a crucial foundation to solving the problems that the nation faced, it said.

Led by Xi, the administration has conducted a massive anti-corruption campaign, targeting top politicians including the nation's former security tsar Zhou Yongkang , and stressed that it would improve the legal system and rule by law.

Renmin University political analyst Zhang Ming said the four comprehensives was a more concrete political motto than the Chinese dream.

"The public can better understand [the concept of] four comprehensives than the Chinese dream, which many regard as a very vague idea," he said.

Beijing-based political commentator Zhang Lifan said party leaders often came up with catchphrases and slogans to solicit public support.

Previous party leaders had also stressed the concepts behind the four comprehensives theory, such as building a prosperous society and maintaining strict governance by the party, but the implementation was often obstructed, Zhang said.

"The party is not using any new ideas but is sticking to the old concepts as it tries to solicit public support," he said.

Rampant corruption and power struggles among factions and vested interests within the party would be major obstacles to reforms, he added, while the risk of an economic downturn would pose further challenges to the party.


Many observers think this may be the most important direction to the CCP and the Chinese government since Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" (2000) or even, perhaps, Deng Xiaoping's "black cats/white cats" remarks (1961) and Zhou Enlai's "Four Modernizations" (1963). In fact, many observers think that Xi Jinping may want to be like Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping and fundamentally alter the very face of China and the Chinese people. Some analysts believe he is, now, just "setting the table" (partly by removing opposition) for a very long tenure as Supreme Leader while he institutes wide ranging, deep seated socio-cultural, economic and even political reforms.
 
I'll buy economic reforms, since they are relatively easy to impliment, and even political reforms, but I have my doubts about social-cultural reforms. After all, you yourself have pointed out to us that while the forms and surface appearances may be different, China is still bing run in a similar fashion to the way it has been run since unification, and the modern ruing cabel is simply the "Red Dynasty".

Culture is very deep rooted (our own "Western" culture can trace roots going back to Classical Greek and Roman civilization), and it takes a lot to change it.
 
The American Interest suggests that the PLA might not sit quietly during the anti corruption purges. Long article (Part 1)

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/02/26/the-coming-coup-in-china/

China's Game of Thrones
The Coming Coup in China
Sulmaan Khan

Whether Xi Jinping is confronting corruption, engaging in just another CCP purge, or some of both, the PLA is stuck dangerously in the middle.


On January 11, 2011, the People’s Liberation Army tested a new J-20 stealth fighter jet. The move surprised the visiting American Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, who had been given no warning of the test. But far more troubling than the jet itself was the fact that Chinese President Hu Jintao was as surprised as Gates. The head of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had been blindsided by his own military.

It was a telling moment that belied the conventional story of civil-military relations in China. That story begins in 1929, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) convened a meeting in Gutian, in Fujian province, that established as an inviolable principle the Party’s authority over the military. The Red Army, the CCP declared, was to implement the revolution under the command of the Party. Power grew from the barrel of the gun, as Mao Zedong put it, but the Party held the gun. In the official history, that was that: The military was subservient to the Party, and from then on the ideological work of enforcing that subservience fell to all Chinese citizens.

That is how the story is told, but the reality is less tidy. There were no guarantees in 1929 that the CCP would ever come to power. When it did, its establishment benefitted from individuals and groups who were often not directly answerable to anybody. Their ties to the CCP were frequently a matter of shared interest or passion more than any codified doctrine of civil-military relations.

None of this, however, stopped Xi Jinping from invoking the spirit of 1929 when he convened a new Gutian conference in September 2014. The traditions established at the 1929 gathering, Xi explained, needed to be carried forward. Guojiahua, the idea that the People’s Liberation Army should serve the country, not the Party, was erroneous and unacceptable. The military could not have an agenda independent of the Party.

Xi delivered another warning at the 2014 Gutian conference: on the perils of corruption. Corruption had to be rooted out, he announced, and the armed forces would do well to reflect on the Xu Caihou case. Xu, a former Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, had been jailed for bribery in June. There was much work to be done to keep the military pure, and Xi, so he declared to the assembled officials, was not going to slacken in that work.

In Xi’s decision to emphasize Party authority alongside the scourge of corruption, there is evidence of how precariously Chinese governance operates today. Had Party authority indeed been unquestioned, there would have been no need to assert it so insistently. If there were no resentment of the civilian government within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and perhaps even examples of insubordination, there would have been no reason to invoke the 1929 meeting in the first place. Many observers see Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign as a pretext for just another Party purge by a power-hungry would-be dictator. That a purge is going on there can be no doubt, but Xi is also driven by genuine concern about both the insidious damage being done to China by corruption and the involvement of the military in that corruption.

Xi’s dilemma is unenviable. He has to continue the drive, and the purge that is part of it, because he has staked his credibility on cleaning up the mess. More important, he needs to alleviate growing popular discontent and recover lost assets at a time when the economy is slowing somewhat and people are increasingly angry about entrenched inequality and anxious about the future.1 But he has to know that his anti-corruption drive threatens PLA members’ interests in unpredictable ways. To incur the wrath of men with guns is not something to be undertaken lightly. A military coup, once unthinkable in the PRC, is now conceivable.

To understand why, it is worth remembering that civil and military spheres have never been as neatly separated in China as in the West. “The sky is high and the emperor is far away” goes an ancient Chinese proverb: Central authorities were distant from the day-to-day lives of their subjects in such a vast state, so civilians had to assume functions that in the West would be considered best left to the military. When steppe nomads raided settlements, there was no time to wait for the emperor to send troops; people had to organize their own defense. Hence the stories of heroes fighting in China’s wilderness: men who with mighty staffs and sharpened spears, righteous fists and brave hearts, could defy and defeat anyone from marauding robbers to corrupt officials.

Myth and history came together to weave such romances deep into Chinese culture. The story is still told of the village of Sanyuanli, where, during the Opium War, local farmers surrounded and drove away British troops while the cowardly Qing court did nothing effective. The villagers prevailed principally because rain had soaked British muskets and because the British themselves were keen on a negotiated settlement, but that did not prevent the incident from being remembered as an example of Chinese martial valor.2 The Taiping Rebellion, which claimed some twenty million lives, was started off by Hong Xiuquan, a civilian who thought he was God’s younger son and who gathered civilians to the ranks of his heavenly army. The militias that sprung up to deal with the Rebellion were led mainly by civil servants independent of the Qing state’s armies; that these militias chose to offer their loyalty to the state was a matter of serendipity, not doctrine. The warlords who carved China up in the aftermath of the Qing’s fall were people to whom civil-military distinctions mattered little. They were armed men who governed bits of territory through shifting combinations of fear and the provision of social services. Mao Zedong’s concept of a people’s war, too, rested on the notion that hungry and dispossessed civilians could wage war. The Communists’ rise to power in fact owed much to its capacity to erase lines separating the civilian world from the military one.

After the Party took control, civilians continued to undertake jobs that in the West would have been left to a professional army. The PLA saw action in the Korean War, but so did young peasants from across the country, who dropped their ploughs and headed for the front to “resist America and help Korea.” In the late 1960s China launched a military intervention to support the Communist Party of Burma, and it too relied heavily on civilians from the southern provinces streaming down to do battle. The Red Guards as well, whether fighting each other, their elders, or foreign missions, saw themselves as troops. Theirs was the language of siege, command, battle, and conquest. Even today, the conflict with other Asian states over the Spratlys and Paracels involves civilian fishermen willing to fight for land they see as theirs. They are encouraged by the state, certainly, but the encouragement works because it builds on a tradition in which military action is dispersed, something anyone can conduct if the circumstances are right. Video games that allow Chinese to kill Japanese war criminals, or nationalist protests running well ahead of where the government wants them to go and spilling into anti-Japanese violence, show how deep this tradition still runs. Militias that are not terribly well regulated have become a hallmark of Chinese life.Militias that are not terribly well regulated have become a hallmark of Chinese life. To call China a militarized culture implies discipline. A “militia-rized culture”, where anyone can play at being a hero of the marsh, is closer to the mark.

There are, to be sure, other places where such cultures exist. Afghanistan and the Kurdish areas of the Middle East come to mind, as do lands inhabited by the Tuareg and Chechens. And as in other places, a militia-rized culture, while it has its uses, can be dangerous to a sitting government. If armed force is divorced from state authority, there is no reason it cannot turn against said authority. When the Mandate of Heaven passes from a government, it becomes a fair target. Whether it is the Sanyuanli villagers defying the British, Hong Xiuquan fighting the Qing, or Mao defeating the Kuomintang and the imperialists, stories abound of the Chinese people taking on authorities they disliked. And in Xi’s China there is plenty for a disgruntled marsh hero to fight.

Moreover, angry, unmarried, and underemployed young men—always a potential source of civil strife—loom everywhere in China, a legacy of the one-child policy and rampant female infanticide. Some who are wealthy and well connected can simply leave instead of voicing discontent, parking their assets in Boston or Manhattan real estate. But for the vast numbers of the discontent who remain, sustained uprisings directed against a disengaged, oppressive regime are a real and growing possibility. So the issue is not just civil-military relations; it is societal-civil-military relations, a triad rather than a dyad of potential trouble.

Xi Jinping knows all this. He is painfully aware that addressing the sources of discontent requires showing that the state actually cares about the well-being of its citizens. This is where the anti-corruption drive and the emphasis on rule of law come in. Corrupt functionaries, Xi wants his subjects to know, will no longer be able to get rich at the expense of the people. That this campaign has to apply to tigers as well as flies shows how deep Xi must believe the discontent runs. Taking on officials like Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai, and, most recently, the spymaster Ma Jian was not something to be done lightly, even if they were political foes. The risk of damaging Party unity by attacking them was considerable, and presumably would not have been taken had Xi not considered the risk of inaction even greater. For the Chinese people to truly believe that their Chairman was bent on ridding the country of corruption, high functionaries, not just petty ones, had to fall. And the campaign had to go beyond the civilian sphere, for the military, too, is seen as being in need of subjugation to the law.

It remains hard to get concrete information on China’s military-industrial complex, but PLA personnel are clearly perceived to have profited from the system in ways that ordinary Chinese cannot. With the PLA’s involvement in a range of companies—from defense to petroleum, aerospace to infrastructure—the opportunities for skimming money abound. The evidence, as prosecutors frequently point out, can be found in the cars driven, in the favors done and received, in the red envelopes passed silently as gifts. Gu Junshan, connected to Xu Caihou, stands accused of siphoning off 30 billion yuan, bribing people by offering them the keys to a Mercedes filled with gold. Xu himself allegedly had received sufficient ill-gotten gains to fill ten trucks. Gao Xiaoyan, one of the few women to have reached the rank of PLA Major General, is now under investigation on bribery charges stemming from her work for a PLA hospital. The very opacity of the system makes it harder to pass off military dealings as legitimate. There is always room to imagine corrupt activity. If corruption is to be truly rooted out in China, the PLA will have to be subject to relentless investigation, too.

Evidence of wrongdoing has not been presented in ways likely to satisfy an American or British court, but corruption is nonetheless a real problem in China. All else equal, it is easier to be corrupt in a murky economy, with a legal system far from explicit, consistent, and impartial. The opportunities for truly damaging corruption abound, which is why there is little reason to doubt Xi’s sincerity and determination. The current chairman was a youth doing hard labor during the Cultural Revolution. Just what lessons he drew from this experience are unclear, but he might well have perceived Mao as rejuvenating China’s national strength by tearing into the cadres at the very top of the political apparatus. Officials were a threat to national security then; they are a threat to national security now, and it is Xi’s turn to deal with them. Xi, one suspects, is that most unpredictable and misunderstood of leaders: a true believer with a mission.

There are two main problems bedeviling Xi’s approach toward the PLA: its lack of credibility and its impact on troop morale. As to the former, in the absence of an independent ombudsman that could investigate Xi as ruthlessly as it does his political enemies, the anti-corruption campaign can never seem wholly honest and just. As already noted, it is widely perceived as an old-fashioned settling of political scores, and this simply comes with the political real estate. After all, Xi’s predecessors used similar campaigns and similarly high-sounding rhetoric to eliminate political opponents. Again, the weakness of Chinese rule of law comes into play. While optimists have made much of Xi’s emphasis on the “rule of law” and the “constitution”, the fact is that Article 51 of the constitution specifies that citizens may not infringe upon the interests of the state—a clause vague enough to mean that Xi, as the paramount representative of the state, will decide when citizens start infringing. The credibility problem is exacerbated by the fact that none of Xi’s political cronies has been prosecuted.

The second problem is that Xi’s campaign damages China’s national security planning. Even the non-corrupt in the PLA have little way of knowing when they have crossed the line, for the line can shift at the whims of their chairman. The virtues of unpredictability have been famously espoused by Sun Tzu (which may be part of Xi’s rationale as he takes on vested military interests), but under current circumstances it hurts more than it helps. The reason is simple: The national security calculus in China right now demands massive military modernization, and that costs money. It is risky—indeed, potentially fatal—to ask for money for weapons, if the chairman suspects that the money will be stolen. The PRC’s military budget has already grown to $132 billion (it is probably much higher). As military planners attempt to counter American and others’ capabilities, it will only swell further. But if Xi’s anticorruption drive makes senior PLA officers wary of proposing budget hikes, it may anger patriotic and nationalistic professional soldiers who might feel that they are betraying the national trust.

In an unpredictable situation, where an attempt to do their jobs by asking for investment in better military systems might lead to an investigation, PLA members have, broadly speaking, three options. The first is to keep a low profile and cooperate with Xi; the odds are reasonable that cooperation will ensure safety. Most seem to be following this particular course. But if one is already under investigation or if one is connected, however loosely, with someone Xi happens not to like, keeping a low profile might not work. A second option is therefore suicide. Two admirals, Ma Faxiang and Jiang Zhonghua, leapt from tall buildings; a general under investigation for corruption, Song Yuwen, is said to have committed suicide by hanging himself.

 
Part 2

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/02/26/the-coming-coup-in-china/

The third option is resistance. Men with guns always have the option of using them.Men with guns always have the option of using them. One or more groups of officers who feel their well-deserved economic gains are being threatened might well opt to take Xi on militarily. As far as we know, such things have not happened under the reign of the CCP (not least because under Mao and Deng, the line between civilians and the military was blurred indeed), but China has historically been prone to the military taking a hand in political affairs. It was a Ming general, Wu Sangui, who first opened China to the invading Manchus. It was Yuan Shikai, a Qing general, who usurped the leadership of the Republic of China at its birth. It was a benevolent general, Zhang Xueliang, who kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek, his civilian leader, and forced him to come to terms with the CCP. There is no guarantee that such military interference will never happen again. A combination of motives—an eagerness to protect a privileged economic place, the fear that if one does not strike, one will be struck down, the idea that one must protect one’s country from a dictator bent on tearing it apart—could impel soldiers to try to seize political power. These are the circumstances in which military coups happen elsewhere; there is no reason to suppose that China is exceptional in this regard. There, as anywhere else, it is impossible to know what will happen when one threatens heavily armed men.

A successful military seizure of the Chinese state could take several forms. The simplest would involve a senior officer or group of officers cooperating silently, gathering enough power, and then suddenly placing Xi under house arrest. Martial law would be declared—for the purest of patriotic motives, of course—and life would go on as normally as possible under such circumstances. Bloodshed would be minimal; our imaginary cabal would have gathered enough support to make resistance futile. They might then be either a transition back to Party rule, or the declaration of a new government that might or might not keep the policies of its predecessor largely unchanged. As military coups go, this would be the cleanest, neatest option.

It is an unlikely outcome, however, because the PLA is divided. Many within it have a stake in Xi’s survival. Far more probable is a scenario in which officers in charge of one of China’s military districts—in Sichuan, say, or perhaps in Jilin—decide that they have tolerated more than enough interference from the central government and declare war. There might be considerable local support for such a move; regional identities remain strong within China and resentment of a rapacious central government is easy to foster. Bo Xilai fell in part because of his popularity in Chongqing. Affordable housing and the idea that he would not let his Chongqingers down made Bo a hero to many locals. Beijing’s arresting him was for many just another example of the central government interfering with Chongqing’s well-being. Capitalizing on local discontent and China’s militia-rized culture, an enterprising military commander could well gather enough strength to challenge Beijing.

Were such a thing to happen, China’s fate could go in one of several different directions. If our imaginary commander were strong enough, an outright seizure of the capital after long, bloody warfare would be one outcome. Mao Zedong, after all, managed to seize power and unify the country after battling a series of foes. But given Xi’s strength, outright victory would be unlikely. Instead, one can expect a bloody stalemate, with the country dividing along north-south lines as old as China itself. “Two Chinas”, to use that dreaded phrase, could emerge. Balkanization might not stop there either. Once other military commands see the possibility of successful defiance, they too might act. Xi might find that quashing secessionists costs more blood and money than he can get his hands on.Xi might find that quashing secessionists costs more blood and money than he can get his hands on. China might fall back into a new Warring States or warlord era, in which little fiefdoms spar, subside into coexistence, and then start sparring again.

All of this is purely speculative, of course. Fear of chaos and the patriotic education system provide a strong deterrent to such action. But unlikely things happen all the time. The survival of the CCP in the years following Gutian is one of them: The odds were stacked against the small band of peasants and dreamers who survived purges, a very long march, and Muslim warlords. It is worth remembering, too, that a unified China is far less of a norm in the five millennia of its history than what the official record claims. The country has fallen apart suddenly and violently many times in its past, often precisely because of the sorts of conflicts one sees unfolding today.

The rupture between civil and military spheres has often been heralded by academics as propitious for democratization. Transitions to democracy in Taiwan and Southeast Asia are cited as hopeful exemplars.3 However true the argument might be for Taiwan (though it fails to take account of the particular nature of civil society there, as well as of American pressure for democratization), there is little reason to hope for a peaceful, let alone democratic, outcome from civil-military conflict in China. Xi’s replacement would probably be another strong authoritarian leader, perhaps one more nationalistic and belligerent in his conduct of foreign affairs. In China, revolutions from below have tended toward violence, ending with the displacement of one despotism by another.

Even that might be better than a China falling to pieces. Disunity in China has meant immense violence in the past, with the effects often spilling over into neighboring countries. Given China’s integration into the global economy, internal chaos could spell trouble the world over.

The possibilities of military interference and subsequent trouble are not lost on Xi. He is too steeped in China’s past, and too savvy a political operator, not to realize that enemies can strike suddenly and without warning. Preventing military dissent was part of the rationale for forming his new national security council at the Third Plenum in 2013. Modeled in part on its American counterpart, the new body is tasked with both domestic and international security affairs; its mandate includes addressing terrorist threats from restive minorities as well as planning to neutralize American military power. It is also meant to be a “unified” structure for dealing with national security, with Xi himself at its head.

This means that the PLA’s perspectives on national security must now pass through a body that Xi chairs. The council is thus a way of reinforcing Party control over the military. It is a way of asserting authority, of making sure that marsh heroes do not go too far. (Xi might also have studied how Mao dealt with recalcitrant generals; Mao purged Peng Dehuai for an alleged anti-Party conspiracy. The new security council could allow Xi to keep an eye out for such conspirators). At one level, this is comforting: One does not want situations in which the Party Chairman is caught wrong-footed, as Hu Jintao was, before visiting senior American officials. But from the perspective of disgruntled PLA members, it constitutes another check on their capacity to do what they deem necessary.

To address resistance from within the military, Xi has also tried to reform the culture within the PLA. One initiative is to improve the auditing of military expenditures. The absence of external supervision has been cited as a reason for graft. Tighter regulations will keep power controlled and directed toward the goals of national security. Military modernization is hurt, after all, when funds that should go to purchase long-range missiles are purloined to buy bars of gold.

But much more important is the attempt to reorient troop loyalties. The risk of military dissent arises from the fact that soldiers might feel more loyal to their commanders than to Xi. A move is underway to educate them on the egregiousness of such thinking. Instead of answering to the “rule of man”, senior commanders and military academy leaders are making clear, troops must answer to the “rule of law”, which means obedience to the Party. Commanders, Major General Pan Liangshi recently declared, should have a “legal mind.” More than any Chinese leader since Mao, Xi seems bent on forging a cult of personality. The public appearances, the charismatic speeches, and the trinkets bearing his image help to portray him as the Great Helmsman, the embodiment, as with emperors of old, of the “rule of law” to whom the PLA’s soldiers owe ultimate allegiance as Commander-in-Chief. All this is being touted as the discipline crucial to combat readiness. It is also the discipline crucial to preventing the military from spiraling out of Party control.

It is difficult to take issue with Xi’s drive to control the military. Any civilian government wants to know that troops are responsive to the government, not to whoever happens to be in charge of their regiment. Anyone familiar with what revolutionary upheavals have looked like in China’s past can understand and even empathize with Xi’s concern.

Just how successful he will be, though, remains to be seen. That he must do something about corruption is undeniable, but can he subdue it without creating a new legal order that threatens Party rule too? True transparency is dangerous; it ultimately means setting up an authority not answerable to Xi or the Party. To have such an authority would be to place Xi and his allies at considerable risk. But absent such an authority, the anti-corruption drive will never be complete, never beyond cynical reproach; it will remain little more than a source of uncertainty and fear. And uncertain, fearful people can do shocking things.


1See Lant Pritchett and Lawrence H. Summers, “Asiaphoria Meets Regression to the Mean”, NBER Working Paper No. 20573.

2See James Polachek, The Inner Opium War (Harvard University Press, 1992).

3See the otherwise brilliant article by Andrew Scobell, “China’s Evolving Civil-Military Relations: Creeping Guojiahua”, Armed Forces and Society (Winter 2005).

Sulmaan Khan is assistant professor of international history and Chinese foreign relations at the Fletcher School, Tufts University, where he also directs the Water and Oceans program at the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy. He is the author of Muslim, Trader, Nomad, Spy: China’s Cold War and the People of the Tibetan Borderlands (University of North Carolina Press, 2015).
 
I believe* the PLA is upset; I also believe* that some PLA admirals and generals and some other very senior officials are, very quietly, discussing how to rid themselves of this turbulent supreme leader. The problem, I think, for them is twofold:

    1. Xi Jinping is moving quickly and ruthlessly and he has broad support in the country and in the Party; and

    2. There are younger men who want the corrupt "old guard" to be purged so that they can move up in the system.

The HUGE cultural change I see coming is the attack on corruption and privilege. Corruption and privilege have been part of Chinese life (and European life, too, if we read our own history fairly) for millennia. We, Western Europeans and Americans and so on, rid ourselves of most of the worst effects of corruption and privilege in the 19th and 20th centuries because we saw that it was the most beneficial (utilitarian) thing to do: fair dealing and equality of opportunity do provide the 'greatest good to the greatest number.' I think Xi Jinping and many younger Chinese leaders see the same thing and want to rescue China from the scourge of corruption.

_____
* But I have no good citations to support my belief; it is, rather, just the product of observation and reading
 
E.R. Campbell said:
I believe* the PLA is upset; I also believe* that some PLA admirals and generals and some other very senior officials are, very quietly, discussing how to rid themselves of this turbulent supreme leader. The problem, I think, for them is twofold:

Speaking of which, did you notice an earlier post above about grumblings within the PLA about Xi's "iron rule" ?

Chinese Army's Call For Commanders to Obey Xi Signals Tensions
 
Yes, I did.

The PLA has been far too powerful for far too long.

Mao and Zhou Enlai "coddled' the PLA because they needed it. Deng Xiaoping did, too, but for different reasons. Ditto Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, also because they needed the PLA leadership's support more than the PLA leaders needed them. Xi Jinping might be the first supreme leader who doesn't 'need' the PLA ... the military reforms (professionalism, etc) that Jiang Zemin and, especially, Hu Jintao began are coming to fruition and the PLA is no longer an essential pillar of the Party.

My sense is that Xi Jinping wants to create a modern, sophisticated, businesslike state and the role of the army in that sort of state is subordinate ... something that will not sit well with many of the "old guard" in the PLA.
 
Renewed protests in Hong Kong:

Reuters

Three arrested at Hong Kong anti-China protest, scuffles with police

HONG KONG (Reuters) - At least three people were arrested as a group of about 400 people in Hong Kong clashed with police in the latest sign of ongoing tensions caused by China's influence in the city.

Protesters in Yuen Long, in Hong Kong's New Territories just a stone's throw from mainland China, chanted to "cancel the multiple-entry permit" and "topple the Chinese Communist Party" as they complained against so-called parallel traders, who buy goods in Hong Kong to sell at a profit across the border.

Demonstrators blocked the area's main street with garbage bins, halting traffic. Police used pepper spray and restrained some people. A female protester was bleeding from the nose as police dragged her away.

(...SNIPPED)
 
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