Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Thursday, November 08, 2012

The Party's Liberation Army

It's worth emphasizing that China's head of state is also commander-in-chief of the military.

Try to ignore reporter Jane Perlez's focus on the effect this link might have on China-U. S. relations and pay attention to the effects the link has on Chinese government and politics.

Close Army Ties of China’s New Leader Could Test the U.S.

Mr. Xi Jinping is set to be elevated to the top post of the Chinese Communist Party at the 18th Party Congress scheduled to begin here on Nov. 8 — only two days after the American election…

The son of a revolutionary general, Mr. Xi, 59, boasts far closer ties to China’s fast-growing military than the departing leader, Hu Jintao, had when he took office. As Mr. Xi rose through the ranks of the Communist Party, he made the most of parallel posts in the People’s Liberation Army, deeply familiarizing himself with the inner workings of the armed forces…

Vice President Xi Jinping and President Hu Jintao

Before becoming heir apparent — ascending at the last party congress in 2007 to the position of first secretary of the Communist Party and then a few months later to the vice presidency of the Chinese government — Mr. Xi had little exposure to the world beyond China…

Since becoming vice president, Mr. Xi has visited more than 50 countries, a concerted effort to get to know the world before taking power…

“The P.L.A. considers he is their man,” said Dr. Jin, the professor at Renmin University.

Mr. Xi will be in charge of a military whose budget almost certainly will grow at a pace with the economy, or even faster. The People’s Liberation Army is awaiting an array of sophisticated weaponry now under development…

But Mr. Xi, with his strong standing with military leaders, may also find himself called on at times to restrain the ambitions of the army. “Xi will have to guide strategy,” Dr. [Phillip C. Saunders, director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University in Washington] said. “Then he has to go back to the P.L.A. and say, ‘This is how it will be.’ That is potentially contentious.”…