China is attempting to Westernize its army, but it is still too dependent on conscripts while unattractive to ideal volunteers.
So here is a great (though bit long) article from StrategyPage: "Leadership: China Westernizes Its Military" of September 13, 2020 at https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20200913.aspx
Chinese were impressed with how the American led force demolished the Iraqi army in 1991. This “Hundred Hour War” was an impressive demonstration of how a well-equipped and well-trained all-volunteer force could roll over a Soviet-style, largely conscript force, even when outnumbered. There were several instances during that short war when outnumbered American units defeated larger Iraqi forces.
Chinese officers looked at that and decided that this was the kind of military China needed. This attitude was reinforced in 2003 when two American and one British division invaded and defeated Iraq in a few weeks. In both those wars the Americans allowed TV journalists to accompany the combat units, so there was lots of video for Chinese troops and officers to study.
By 2003 China was still hampered by a force modeled on the Russian (Soviet Union) model, an organizational style that had largely been discredited..." much more.
7 comments:
Thanks Pete, for this link.
Makes you wonder how successful an invasion of Taiwan, or a serious push across the Indian border, would really be.
Taiwan would be motivated to repel invaders and still has a big reserve force (wait 10 more years though, after 15 years of non conscription), while the CCP force would suddenly realise they'd actually have to fight, and their families at home face possible deaths of their sons by the hundreds of thousands...the army was previously just seen as another job, a means to put money on the table...
Assuming China won't just bombard Taiwan into oblivian, an invasion of Taiwan is no certain thing.
Andrew
Thanks Andrew
A. I think too often China and Taiwan relations are seen in:
- short-medium terms
and
- sheer military OrBat terms.
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I see military AND economic considerations often going hand-in-hand.
B. How about the long-term, 20+ years where there is:
- China with a real GDP equal to or greater than the US's
- Chinese trade inducements for Taiwan to draw closer into the Chinese economy and Chinese "EU-like" economic regulations
and
- at the same time the US sees trade with China as a much higher priority than the US continuing to try to be a security-guarantor for a Taiwan deep within China's economic and regional strategic zone?
This video from 2014 might be of interest.
It follows two British army cadets on a short exchange with a PLA military academy and it seems like that, like in many schools systems in East Asia, theory has priority over practice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uZ-Aqs42nQ
/C
Thanks /C [at September 17, 2020 at 8:31 PM]
For the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uZ-Aqs42nQ
Some might think the very high standard of parade ground drill of the Chinese military students (after 4 years) is a good thing. But such precision indicates they're doing too much parade ground drill at the expense of other things.
Other things being individual leadership and initiative in exercises (like the orienteering they show) or actual war.
Also 20% of their time might be wasted on Communist indoctrination (which opposes individualism and initiative) by rote learning.
The border fighting against India is for many politico-military reasons including the PLA:
- testing the effectiveness of higher level command and control, and
- lower level leadership (down to company, platoon and squad level) in actual warring.
An excellent essay by Australia's Stan Grant on Australia's "ABC News" September 20, 2020 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-20/china-knows-its-place-in-the-world-can-australia-live-with-it/12672740
"China has told us how they see their place in the world. The question is, can we live with it?"
"...To understand China we need to grasp three things: history, homeland and harmony.
And we need to see these things through modern China's three most powerful leaders: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping....
Let's not think that Xi is any more brutal than his predecessors.
Mao is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions and while Deng is remembered as a reformer, he is also the man who ordered his soldiers to shoot their own people protesting for democracy in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Xi is everything his party and the ghosts of leaders past have made him..."
Hi Pete,
I can see your point. I think that we won't reach that stage though. My personal feeling is that military action by Xi will be sooner. Reasons for this are:
- Xi disbanded 30 year's of political succession culture and made himself Emperor and has been less subtle than previous CCP leadership 1995-2012. He's currently 67, and is unlikely to want to be patient and set things up slowly for 20 years, just for the next person to claim the glory.
- the US is finally moving past the last 20 year's of stagnation, where they were mired in a continuous low grade war in the middle East, and their concurrency based military projects (LCS, F35, Ford, Zumwalt) are all mostly done with. The army has shown it's moving ahead with new mid range missiles https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2020/09/02/us-army-pursuing-new-mid-range-missile-amid-tactical-missile-upgrade-delay/ , the USN is nearly finished with the LCS and finally will begin building the FFGX, and the air force has recently revealed it's 6th gen fighter https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2020/09/15/the-us-air-force-has-built-and-flown-a-mysterious-full-scale-prototype-of-its-future-fighter-jet/.
This is arguably the weakest the US will be militarily. It can only get stronger from now
In 10 year's time, the US will have worked out all the F35 bugs, and have hundreds , or thousands more of them, perhaps a dozen FFGX will be added to the declining USN
As for stronger ties economically between the US and China, I think that's harder to say.
From what I read in the Economist a few month's ago, currently, there are three major economic blocks- the US, China and the EU. China's policies blocking access to major Western companies, or stealing their IP, while the West allows the Chinese ones free access, means ultimately, without intervention, China's companies will ultimately dominate. That's why Trump has been imposing tariffs.
If Indonesia and India can remove their notorious red tape, then there will possibly be a flood of investment out of China and into those countries.
As for trade inducements drawing Taiwan and China closer, do you think the Chinese leadership will ever stop their yearly proclamation of using force, if necessary, to reclaim Taiwan? That pretty much pushes most Taiwanese away from unification.
Andrew
Hi Andrew
Equally Xi may not want to leave office at the Biden (78 + 8) ripe old age of 86 with a reputation Xi started and lost a war against US/Japan/India before China was definitely powerful enough to prevail.
Yes the US is developing new mid range missiles, may have the minor warship FFGXs in 2025 and 6th gen fighters in 2040.
But the US real CURRENT advantages include STEALTHY B-2s, F-22s, F-35s, SSNs and SSGNs (with, compared to China, advanced cruise missiles) all a decade ahead of China. China is also 20 years behind US SSBNs.
After the domestic humiliation of allowing Covid to spread the Xi Regime would not want the Chinese economy wrecked by a war against the unpredictable Trump.
Also China's trade (with the EU, US etc) is easy for the Quadrilateral countries and Singapore to blockade, leading to Chinese economic disaster even short of war.
Taiwan? A comparatively small prize for China that the West may be willing to surrender.
Imponderables that may change this picture include, whether:
- a Biden win ushers in an aging, bumbling President unwilling to confront China, and
- will RUSSIA ally its military forces with China before land and sealocked Russia also fears a sea and also land blockade
Pete
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