A History of the Modern Chinese Army

If you are looking for answers to questions like China can build high quality sporting fire arms but after 10 teas of try can't build a modern military rifle...why China can build modern merchant ships but can't build functioning surface combat ships or submarines...or why after have a smuggled US F-16A for over 20 years the Chines can't get a clone right )the J-10) this book is not for you. This book is a very good survey of the modern Chinese military other wise known as the PLA. The author Xiaobing Li currently a professor at the University of Central Oklahoma is a former, maybe still current PLA officer who joint the military and CP after the Great Leap Forward/Cultural Revolution of the 1960's. Prof. Li writes a good narrative but manages to avoid addressing any of the critical questions any the PLA or it organization. Going unaddressed is why is there two CMC's Central Military Commission, one Government and one CP...what does the PLA mean when it talks about moving into a high tec. military from a manpower dominated military...and most importantly what are the short, medium and long tern aspirations of the PLA. What Prof. Li does do and does quite well is provide a readable survey of how the PLA went from it start as a peasants revolt to military seeking to be a world wide military power. The first part of the journey starts and ends with the dynamic personally of Mao Zedong after the death of Mao the PLA seem to be a ship without a Captain. This is a fine text by an insider who is reluctant to give up any of the PLA family jewels, but by that fact alone offers an insight in to the mind set of the Chinese military. This text is only a starting point in trying to understand Chine's military ambitions. By design I think the more you learn and read about the Chinese, and especially the PLA the more you realize you don't know or understand very much at all. This book will add to your knowledge base, but not to any real understanding of the Chinese military. Or as the Chinese might say, it's a brick not a house.

This is an EXCELLENT book - tremendously well researched and written and extremely timely. Once I picked it up I read it cover to cover. Professor Xiaobing Li is extremely well qualified to author a book on the modern Chinese Army. Professor of History and Director of the Western Pacific Institute at the University of Central Oklahoma, he has authored a previous book on the Chinese Army in the Korean War and served in China's People's Liberation Army. Beginning with the Chinese Revolution, Professor Li discusses the various stages in the development of the PLA. He writes, for example, that more than 2.3 million Chinese troops participated in the Korean War supported by another 800,000 non-combatant volunteers. The Chinese suffered more than one million casualties, inclusing 152,000 dead. Anyone interested in how the Chinese military would sieze Taiwan has only to read the chapter on Russianizing the PLA. Professor Li provides unparalleled insights into Chinese joint amphibious planning and operations to seize Taiwan and its surrounding islands. I was left with little doubt, at the conclusion of this chapter, that if the Chinese apply themselves to the seizure of Taiwan they will succeed - and quickly! Li also discusses China's war with India in 1962, (resulting in more than 10,000 casualties between the two sides), and Vietnam, between 1965 and 1970 (resulting in some 65,000 casualties) and the PLA's border clashes with Soviet troops between 1969 and 1971. More importantly, he provides detailed biographical information on key Chinese civilian and military leaders up to the present day. Anyone believing that Hu Jintao, the current Chinese leader, is reform oriented has only to read that he spent four years in Tibet as Communist Party Secretary crushing the independence movement and Buddhist rebellions there. Professor Li concludes that China must build a confident and democratic society before it can have a modern army. Still, while factors of insecurity and instability remain, the Chinese currently enjoy a favorable surrounding security environment. It thus seems possible, according to Professor Li, for the country and the PLA to avoid a general war for a fairly long period of time. "Relaxation," he writes, "is still the general trend in international security." The author concludes, however, that the issue of Taiwan's independence remains a highly sensitive and dangerous one. This is a tremendously good read! Still, I believe Professor Li remains too optimistic about China and its future use of military force. The country is consuming increasingly huge quantities of oil, at a time when world supplies are dwindling, and faces a shortage of fresh drinking water that borders on the catastrophic. Some 70 percent of the country's water is polluted, with 30 percent of that toxic. It will soon reach a tipping point at which technology will not be able to offer a short term solution. It is clear that the growing need for oil and water will jeo