Reining in the PLA: Civil-Military Relations under Xi Jinping

• In Event: China Under Xi Jinping: Internal and External Challenges

Abstract

Over the last thirty years, Chinese leaders have struggled with building a military strong enough to wage wars but not so powerful as to interfere with domestic governance. Civil-military relations were increasingly plagued by problems of military secrecy, corruption, and ideological laxity among PLA members. However, in recent years Xi Jinping and his fellow reformers have carried out several changes to mitigate those problems: reasserting the role of the Party in the military, creating new supervisory mechanisms, and introducing new rules to ensure professionalism. Nevertheless, Xi's reforms face a number of tradeoffs and limitations that could reduce the ability of the Party to enhance what Samuel Huntington would call its "subjective control" over the PLA. Because PLA officers often recite the right words, but may believe otherwise, only a future political crisis may reveal the Party's true grasp over the army.

Author

• Joel R. Wuthnow, National Defense University