Himanshu Bijlawan asked: In the light of recent visit of the Chinese President and concurrent military face off at the border, can it be said that the PLA is not under the full control of the central leadership?

Jagannath P. Panda replies: The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been the backbone of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The CPC is in power today because of the constant support of the PLA. At the same time, the party leadership ensures that the PLA remain under its full control, without curbing the relative autonomy that it enjoys under the 1997 National Defence Law (NDL). There have been several occasions in the last decade which suggest that differences of opinion exist between the two, making them function differently at times but without prompting a conflict.

As regards the recent PLA incursion on the India-China border during the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to India, I would say that the Chinese President was aware of the incursion, having been previously informed of it by the top PLA officials in charge of the border, but he was not aware that the incursion would be on such a large scale. In that regard, the PLA perhaps did not take the nation’s president into confidence. This shows that there are divisions or conflict of opinion between the Party and the PLA in addressing China’s security issues, including the boundary or maritime issues that are linked to China’s national security and sovereignty. Subject matters relating to national sovereignty or security that are territorial in nature are not compromised in China, and the PLA wants to have a dominant and final say in such matters, unlike most of the foreign policy issues where the CPC holds a dominant position and takes the final call.

It also appears that some of the top PLA officials are not pleased with President Xi Jinping’s style of functioning, especially with his strong action against top PLA officials who are considered corrupt and his exhortation to the PLA to check the pervasive corruption within the army. This has not gone down well with the PLA whose core leadership has traditionally enjoyed the ego splurge that comes with money and power. There is also a possible case that the PLA, bristling with resentment, wanted to make President Xi Jinping’s visit to India a muted success.

India’s preparedness to counter any territorial incursion by China also surprised the PLA and as a reaction a large presence of Chinese soldiers was noticed in the region. This may have also allowed the Chinese President to put pressure on the new Indian Government to address and take the boundary negotiation more seriously than the previous government did. The Chinese military officials were also perhaps trying to gauge the new Indian Government’s resilience against any provocation by them. It was part of the classic Chinese strategy: give confusing signals and surprise the opponent with your moves.

To read more about China’s civil-military dynamics, please refer to my following IDSA publication:

Jagannath P. Panda, “Leadership, Factional Politics and China’s Civil-Military Dynamics: The Post-17th Party Congress Patterns”, Strategic Analysis, Routledge, 33 (5), September-October 2009, pp. 716-729.

Posted on December 22, 2014