Eurasia Review
18 November 2017
- RSIS
- Media Mentions
- PLA Under Xi Jinping: New Direction In Strategic Thinking? – Analysis
PLA Under Xi Jinping: New Direction In Strategic Thinking? – Analysis
In the period leading up to the recently concluded 19th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) congress, civil-military relations in post-reform China had previously been viewed under the lens of Party-army relations. More recently, however, such a paradigm – following Xi Jinping’s consolidation of the trident of Party-state-military power – no longer seems true, with some People’s Liberation Army (PLA) watchers alluding to a shift towards a model of Xi Jinping-PLA relations.
Notwithstanding, the PLA has supported its commander-in-chief in his consolidation of power to attain his present unassailable position. It is, however, open to debate as to the extent to which the CCP’s coercive forces can count on China’s new paramount leader to fully translate his considerable political clout into the CCP’s growing professionalisation.
… James Char is an Associate Research Fellow with the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Richard A. Bitzinger is a Senior Fellow and Programme Coordinator of the Military Transformations Programme at RSIS. They are co-editors of a special issue of The China Quarterly, “A New Direction in the People’s Liberation Army’s Emergent Strategic Thinking, Roles and Missions.”
IDSS / Online
Last updated on 21/11/2017
