China's Military Procurement and Its Operational Implications: A Response to Yoram Evron

Abstract

This article is a response to Evron's argument, offering readers another perspective to assess China's military modernization and war fighting capabilities, using the same framework and methodology. It examines three topics: China's national security and military strategy, the PLA's procurement decision-making process, and China's military support and mobilization system. It concludes that, China's military modernization is to fight and win local wars under the conditions of informatization, but if required the PLA can reliably supply large numbers of sophisticated weapons and spare parts, to wage a complex and prolonged conflict.

Key Words:

• China
• PLA
• Military Procurement
• Operational Capability

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr Jacques S. Gansler, William Lucyshyn, Yang Ruilong, Zeng Li, Huang Chaofeng, and Lu Jiahuan. I also thank Thomas Mahnken for reviewing my draft.

Notes

¹Thomas G. Mahnken, ‘China's Anti-Access Strategy in Historical and Theoretical Perspective’, Journal of Strategic Studies 34/3 (June 2011), 307.

²Yoram Evron, ‘China's Military Procurement Approach in the Early 21st Century and Its Operational Implications’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/1 (Feb. 2012), 63–93.

³Andrew Erickson, ‘Demystifying China's Defense Spending: Less Mysterious in the Aggregate’, US Naval War College Working Paper, 2012.

⁴David M. Finkelstein, ‘China's National Military Strategy’, in James C. Mulvenon and Richard H. Yang (eds), The People's Liberation Army in the Information Age (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 2000), 99–145.

⁵‘Full Text: China's Peaceful Development’, Xinhua Net, 6 Sept. 2011, <http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-09/06/c_131102329.htm>.

⁶‘China's National Defense in 2008’, China's Central Government, Jan. 2009, <http://english.gov.cn/official/2009-01/20/content_1210227.htm>. ‘Full text: China's National Defense in 2010’, Xinhua Net, 31 March 2011, <http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-03/31/c_13806851.htm>.

⁷Zhu Qichao, ‘The Temptation and Cost of the New Asia-Pacific Cold War’, Working Paper of China's National University of Defense Technology, Jan. 2012, <www.21ccom.net/articles/qqsw/qqgc/article_2012011151796.html>.

⁸Zhang Wannian, Contemporary World Military and China's Defense (Beijing: Central Party School Press 2003), 130.

⁹Anthony H. Cordesman and Nicholas S. Yarosh, ‘Chinese Military Modernization and Force Development: A Western Perspective’, Report of Center for Strategic & International Studies, Washington DC, 30 July 2012, <www.csis.org/burke/reports>.

¹⁰Evron argues that owing to lack of experience, PLA is not capable of understanding the exact nature of the current battlefield. Along with this idea, we can say that no country is fully experienced on the information war. Afghanistan and the Iraq war are not real conflicts of high-tech weapon systems, but a test for one side, as the other side had no such weapons.

¹¹The first step is to develop a series of main advanced weapons, formulate a small but effective weaponry system under conditions of high technology, and have the deterrence and operational capability by 2010. China's Ministry of Defense declared this goal attained in 2011. The second step is to basically accomplish mechanization and make major progress in informationization by 2020; the third step is to reach the goal of modernization of national defense and armed forces by the mid-twenty-first century.

¹²‘PLA details Chinese military operations other than war since 2008’, PLA Daily, 5 Sept. 2011.

¹³Jia Xiaowei, ‘Enhance the core military capabilities and accomplish diversified military tasks’, PLA Daily, 27 May 2008.

¹⁴Tai Ming Cheung and Maggie Marcum, ‘Assessing China's Defense Research, Development, and Acquisition System: Frameworks of Analysis, Evolution, and Challenges to Reform’, 2012 IGCC Summer Training Workshop on the Relationship between Security and Technology in China, 11 July 2012.

¹⁵Lauren Holland, ‘Explaining Weapons Procurement: Matching Operational Performance and National Security Needs’, Armed Forces & Society 19/3 (Spring 1993), 353–76.

¹⁶Liu Zhuotai, Mou Fangben, Liu Jingshu, Luo Danghui and Yang Yang, Military Procurement (Beijing: Military Science Press 1999), 59–62.

¹⁷George C. Wilson, ‘Pentagon Choking on Congressional Pork’, National Journal (16 Feb. 2002), 484.

¹⁸‘PLA Navy Weaponry System National Defense Key Laboratory Passed the Acceptance’, Science and Technology Daily, 16 Nov. 2011.

¹⁹Yang Weimin, Overview on Reliability, Maintainability and Supportability (Beijing: Defense Industry Press 2004), 10–15.

²⁰Huang Chaofeng, ‘The Defense Industry and Military Acquisition Practices in the People's Republic of China’, Working Paper of Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprises, University of Maryland, 2009.

²¹Tai Ming Cheung, ‘The Chinese Defense Economy's Long March from Imitation to Innovation’, Journal of Strategic Studies 34/3 (June 2011), 325–54.

²²Zhu Qinglin, National Economy Mobilization Tutorial (Beijing: Military Science Press 2007), 95.

²³Wu Xinzhe and Zheng Hui, ‘A Study of the Mechanism of Economic Mobilization Support’, Military Economic Research (Feb. 2003), 36–8.

²⁴‘The civil-military integrated weaponry research and producing system has taken shape’, PLA Daily, 2 Feb. 2012.