Rotting From Within: Investigating the massive corruption of the Chinese military

Foreign Policy ^ | 4/16/2012 | John Garnaut

[mojito]

In many fields of international competition, China is less sanguine about its abilities than outsiders. Chinese leaders often remind Westerners that China is a developing country, with hundreds of millions of people living in poverty, an unbalanced economy, and high social tensions. What should most worry Beijing, and provide some comfort to those who fear Chinese military expansionism, is the state of corruption in the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

True, the world underestimated how quickly a four-fold jump in Chinese military spending in the past decade would deliver an array of new weaponry to prevent the United States from interfering in a regional military conflict....What is unknown, however, is whether the Chinese military, an intensely secretive organisation only nominally accountable to civilian leaders, can develop the human software to effectively operate and integrate its new hardware.

Judging from a recent series of scathing speeches by one of the PLA's top generals, details of which were obtained by Foreign Policy, it can't: The institution is riddled with corruption and professional decay, compromised by ties of patronage, and asphyxiated by the ever-greater effort required to impose political control. The speeches, one in late December and the other in mid-February, were given by Gen. Liu Yuan, the son of a former president of China and one of the PLA's rising stars; the speeches and Liu's actions suggest that the PLA might be the site of the next major struggle for control of the Communist Party, of the type that recently brought down former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai.

[mojito]

Interesting but long article on the PLA.

For China watchers and East Asian security buffs.

[lurk]

Corruption and everyday life in China are the same thing.

Read the book Out of Mao’s Shadow by Pan. Top to bottom, the system operates by bribery and greasing the skids under the table. Sort of like Washington.

[hinckley buzzard]

This should not be surprising. The Chinese military has not engaged an enemy since the Vietnamese bloodied their nose in the late seventies. They have no officer corps with combat experience. Dittoes NCO's, the guts of any military. Their weapons have not been proven under combat conditions, and the years of peace have rendered their careerists corrupt.

Like North Korea, a formidable force--on paper.

By contrast look at the US military--fatigued perhaps from years of continuous hostilities but with an officer corps and cadre of NCO's who know what combat is all about. A wealth of experience using the latest weapons available, their strengths and weaknesses. In a hot war the US would have major advantages over either of these preposterous foes.

But like the paper dragons, our major weakness is political malfeasance from the top down, and that cannot be fixed by the men in uniform.

[Clintonfatigued]

Ping

[Nat Turner]

And how do you think the civilian commies with “cure” the PLA??? Stalin tried purges but it was the short sighted attack by Hitler and the Wehrmacht that saved the Red Army. Look for these boys to get “into some trouble”

[Kenny Bunk]

Buzzard, the CHICOM fought us to a standstill in Korea, and took a million and a half KIA to do it. The NVA maneuvered us out of Vietnam, and they took a million and half KIA just to make us leave.

Today's CHICOM wouldn't mind taking casualties either. They can afford it and know now that we have no stomach for wars of attrition.