Modernizing China's Military: Progress, Problems, and Prospects

by David Shambaugh

Book Overview

David Shambaugh, a leading international authority on Chinese strategic and military affairs, offers the most comprehensive and insightful assessment to date of the Chinese military. The result of a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520242386
• ISBN13: 9780520242388
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 374 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Insight Into The PLA

I read this book for a graduate history class on Mao's China David Shambaugh's book is a well-written and extremely important resource to anyone who is interested in China's military development, and its implications for Sino-American relations. With China's recent burgeoning economy and explosive military budget, Shambaugh's book could not have come at a better time. Shambaugh's use of very hard to obtain primary source material, as well as extensive use of secondary source and personal interviews with Chinese civilian and military policy-makers is a testament to the quality of the scholarship of this book. Thus, Shambaugh's impressive research, knowledge, and description of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Chinese Defense Industrial Complex (CDIC), and the political leadership's national defense goals guarantee that his book will serve as an important resource for years to come. Shambaugh's chapters on "Civil-Military Relations" and "Command, Control, and Force Structure" are most illuminating chapters exposing one of the key elements the Central Military Commission (CMC) and PLA are currently wrestling with; that of the proper mix of civilian and military command and control of the PLA. The civilian and military leadership must solve its command and control structure if it is going to be successful in its goal of modernizing the PLA. Shambaugh noted that currently the PLA command structure is "unlike more modern Western militaries, which devolve a fairly high degree of unit and individual autonomy in combat situations, Leninist militaries are given minimal leeway for independent interpretation of orders" (108). Shambaugh started with the political fallout within the leadership structure of the PLA triggered by the Tiananmen Square uprising to illuminate the current tug-of-war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and government rule over the PLA. On May 20, 1989 when martial law was declared, eight generals and admirals signed a petition published in the newspaper asking Deng Xiaoping not to use the PLA to put down the uprising. This "mini-mutiny" caused a panic within the CCP and the government. Within three months, wide spread investigations looking into the loyalty of military commanders above the division level had been conducted. Shambaugh observed that the CCP made concrete moves to insure the "absolute control of the Communist Party over the PLA" (25). These "investigations" culminated in a wholesale purge of the PLA leadership in the 1990's, starting with General Yang Baibing, secretary-general of the Central Military Commission, (CMC) and many of his senior handpicked "cronies." Deng installed the very able and Party loyalist Jiang Zemin in November of 1989. Jiang had retained his chairmanship of the CMC even after becoming the General-Secretary of the CCP and President of China. Thus, the Party under Jiang's leadership has continued to keep a firm control over the PLA; at least up through the publication of

The Rise of The Chinese Military

This is a MUST READ Book for EVERY AMERICAN! Nothing is So Threatening and So Politically Ignored!

A good overview on China's military

Despite some of the mistakes pointed out by past reviewers, I believe the book is still a valuable resource for people not familiar with China's military. What I found particularly useful was Shambaugh's presentation of the Chinese military manufacturing industry and just how weak it is (at least for now). While in no means a comprehensive resource on China's military, its a good book and is worth the read.

Great, but outdated a bit

This is a great book and I think it is worth to read it. The writer covers all basic information of PLA and provides his own in-sight analysis. The best part in this book is the section talking about the civil-military relationship between Chinese government or Communist part and PLA. Most of people focus only on the modernization of equipment and training of PLA but this writer gives another perspective of how PLA should further transform itself into a ¡°government¡¯s army¡± rather than a ¡°party¡¯s army¡±. However, this book is not perfect. The part talking about the equipment of PLA is basically outdated. Most of his sources on PLA seem to be based on pre-2000 information. For example, he never mentions Type-98 or Type-98G tank and its mysterious laser dazzler in his book. He also refuses to recognize China¡¯s ¡°state-of-art¡± missile industry. Therefore, if you are interested in the equipment of PLA, I recommend www.sinodefence.com and www.china-defense.com, which offer ¡°real-time¡± update for what is happening to PLA. Overall, this is a great book for analyzing the political modernization of PLA but not technical modernization.

Amazing

Professor Shambaugh's introduction to the Chinese military is an easy to read book full of important detail and predictions. Few books out there provide a full overview of the PLA including topics such as civil-military relations, and PLA budget. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the Chinese military or East Asian security.