The Rise and Fall of China: What Do We Need to Know Before Choosing a Powerful Term in a Regime Assisted by the World?

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“All these reforms that Xi Jinping has imposed on the PLA, He Weidong is the first one who has actually had to deal with this at some level in an operational sense,” Lee added.

China now has the largest navy in the world, a stealth bomber expected soon, and a rocket force that is newer and more potent than any other in Asia.

Even the largest military forces can be exploited, as shown by Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine.

What should be even more worrying for Xi, as he prepares to secure an expected third term as both party leader and supreme commander of the Chinese military at this week’s 20th Party Congress, is that many analysts see parallels between the problems dogging Moscow in Ukraine and the potential weak spots that remain in the PLA.

“The wheels of history are rolling on towards China’s reunification and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Complete reunification of our country must be realized,” Xi told the Congress to thundering applause.

The past year has seen China significantly ramp up its intimidation of Taiwan, a democratically governed island of 24 million that the Chinese Communist Party claims as its sovereign territory despite never having controlled it.

China’s Central Military Commission is in the midst of a war-game: A critical look at Putin’s warning about his invasion of Ukraine

Analysts say that would require hundreds of thousands of soldiers in what would be the largest amphibious operation since the Allies stormed ashore at Normandy in German-occupied France in World War II.

While the PLA Navy has been churning out ships – including a new aircraft carrier launched this year and numerous Type 055 destroyers, seen by some as the world’s most powerful surface ships – doing so has been expensive.

And as Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, points out, Taiwan has a relatively cheap way of countering them – by investing in the sort of small, land-based anti-ship missiles that Ukraine has been using to great success against Russia.

China also faces a significant challenge in making sure all the different parts of its now formidable fighting forces pull in the same direction – another issue that has dogged Russia in Ukraine.

In the early stages of creating unified command structures, air, navy, army and rocket units work together to execute a plan.

Xi’s work report on Sunday cited the need to “improve the command system for joint operations” and enhance the PLA’s “systems and capacity for reconnaissance and early warning, joint strikes, battlefield support, and integrated logistics support.”

In the days following the visit the PLA’s navy war-gamed a blockade of Taiwan, its rocket force sent missiles over the main island and its air force flew jets repeatedly into Taipei’s Air Defense Identification Zone.

Four of the top six officers of China’s Central Military Commission (CMC) have reached the normal retirement age of 68 and are being replaced as Xi heads into his third term, according to Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the US National Defense University.

What’s more, the four departing officers were in charge of the PLA’s actual fighting forces, while the two remaining ones come from the military’s political ranks, Wuthnow wrote for the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief last month.

Analysts warned that a smoke screen could be created by using language like how Putin referred to his invasion of Ukraine as a military operation.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/19/asia/china-party-congress-xi-military-russia-parallels-intl-hnk-mil-mic/index.html

China’s military mission to the east: bringing out out into the world, protecting the sovereignty of the island and preventing a hot war

The video shows a missile that was launched by the rocket force of the Chinese People’s Liberation ArmyPLA, which was targeting certain areas in the east of Taiwan.

However, Chinese state media have done their best to play the order down, saying it could cover actions such as participating in international peacekeeping operations or providing disaster relief.

“The outlines aim to prevent and neutralize risks and challenges, handle emergencies, protect people and property, and safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, and world peace and regional stability,” the Xinhua news service reported.

He wrote in July that the new guidelines on non-war operations would be “a next step in bringing [China’s] military presence out into the world – and likely another step away from the peaceful rise it once promised to the global community.”

The top authority in charge of the PLA, the Military Commission, includes a number of officers that are seen as “action men” for their expertise in areas that are key to any invasion. Concerns have been raised that such a move could be imminent.

The Taiwanese president said there was no room for compromises over the self-ruled island’s sovereignty, in order to keep peace across the Taiwan Strait.

Fears that Beijing could attempt a military takeover of Taiwan have been heightened by the recent rhetoric from both sides.

Analysts said that the military commission chaired by Xi is not a war council but a body that is set up to continue the methodical modernization of the world’s largest military.

James Char, associate research fellow in the China Program at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore said that a hot war will not happen in the foreseeable future.

“The PLA will continue to try to achieve China’s national objectives by operating at the level below the threshold of war in the near to medium term,” Char said.

The appointment of Gen. He Weidong, former commander of the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command, as one of two CMC vice chairmen below only Xi in the military leadership shows that commitment to joint operations, analysts said.

Earlier this year, the results of those efforts were evident when, shortly after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, the PLA put on a show of force in a joint operation that included sea, air and missile units while simulating a blockade of the island and sending ballistic missiles over it.

According to a senior research fellow of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University, Zhang has experience in overseeing the acquisition of equipment for the People’s Liberation Army.

Besides bringing together the army, navy, air and rocket forces, He will have learned how to implement a national mobilization plan and integrate auxiliary units like the People’s Armed Police, Lee said.

Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said He was one of Xi’s “action men” on the military commission. He was one of the action men, being his fellow vice chairman.

The father of the man who served with Hu in the Chinese civil war is seen as a loyal ally of the Chinese leader. Zhang served on the previous military commission and has been retained and promoted despite being past the unofficial retirement age of 68.

This is a top priority for the president. The (Party Congress) work report focuses on the need to increase the proportion of ‘intelligentized’ equipment – a category that includes things like unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, and hypersonic missiles,” Wuthnow said. The acquisition role was also played by Gen. Li Shangfu, who was a commission member.

But even with those “action men” and advanced arms acquisition specialists sitting right behind Xi on the commission, analysts do not expect combat across the Taiwan Strait any time soon.

“The PLA is well aware of its operational shortcomings and knows it does not yet possess the capability to launch an armed invasion of Taiwan in the near to medium term,” said Char, the Singapore researcher, pointing partly to the lack of equipment and personnel trained in amphibious landings.

A Comment on “Peaceful Unification in the Presence of Constant Isotropy” [J. D. Lee, Phys. Rev., 358 (2006), 1612-1830]

Lee said there is enough breathing space for the commission to come up with a peaceful reunification option.