• Beijing's Long Game: Gray Zone Tactics in the Pacific

  • Jul 25 2024
  • Duración: 14 m
  • Podcast

Beijing's Long Game: Gray Zone Tactics in the Pacific

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  • Beijing's Long Game: Gray Zone Tactics in the Pacific Published July 25th, 2024 By Brandon Tran “During the progress of hostilities, guerillas gradually develop into orthodox forces that operate in conjunction with other units of the regular army… There can be no doubt that the ultimate result of this will be victory.” -On Guerilla Warfare, by Mao Zedong The expulsion of former Chinese defense ministers Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on June 27, 2024, is the latest development in a months-long series of personnel purges in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). As President Xi Jinping continuously reforms the PLA to make it a “world-class military” capable of achieving the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) national security objectives, these purges illustrate an underlying tension that stems from competing priorities. Because the PLA is the armed wing of the CCP, Xi Jinping must make tradeoffs in balancing regime loyalty and military competence when selecting PLA officers for senior positions. As a result of this and similar compromises, the PLA remains unprepared for direct confrontation with near-peer adversaries. To address this gap, China will continue leveraging irregular warfare activities to incrementally accomplish its strategic objectives while buying time to achieve the level of conventional force development it desires. This article will evaluate how China’s use of irregular warfare sets the stage for its conventional force development, given the context of the competing requirements for senior PLA officer promotion, the PLA’s guiding principles, and the role of the new defense minister, Dong Jun. Loyalty and Experience within the CMC By necessity, Xi Jinping’s selection of senior officials balances political loyalty with operational and command experience. While he favors aggressive and competent commanders capable of realizing his ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, these leaders must remain politically loyal to Xi’s rule. His selections for the Central Military Commission (CMC) in 2022 attest to this. In order of rank, they are Zhang Youxia, He Weidong, Li Shangfu (who has since been removed), Liu Zhenli, Miao Hua, and Zhang Shengmin. Xi’s appointment of senior leaders to the CMC indicates an attempt to balance loyalty and experience because many of his selections break precedent. Examples include Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, both promoted despite Zhang being past retirement age and Liu being the youngest in his rank group. These exceptions to policy were made because both Zhang and Liu have combat experience from the Sino-Vietnamese border wars, a rare and valuable quality given that the PLA is largely untested and inexperienced in combat. In other unconventional moves, He Weidong was permitted to skip key career milestones before assuming his position on the CMC. At the same time, Miao Hua transitioned from a long Army career to become the Navy’s political commissar. Indeed, selection to senior leadership positions has also been based on personal connections and previous experience with Xi. He Weidong and Miao Hua worked with Xi back when he was a provincial official in Fujian, and both Zhangs hail from the same region as Xi, claiming membership in his infamous Shaanxi Gang. Chinese Strategic Concepts To put Xi’s priorities and the PLA’s irregular military operations into context, it is vital to understand the guiding principles that inform the PLA’s military philosophy. Since its founding, the PRC has adhered to a warfighting philosophy of Active Defense. Under this principle, conflict is believed to exist on a spectrum ranging from peace to kinetic war. As a result, the PLA assumes a proactive force posture, constantly assessing potential threats and carrying out activities below the threshold of kinetic war that could create a better geopolitical position for the PRC. Through Active Defense, the PLA would theoretically be able to accomplish its objectives while controlling escalation on the conflict continuum. In tandem with Active Defense is the concept of People’s War, incorporating lessons from the past century and a half and forming the backbone of the PLA’s tactics and strategies. From its inception by Mao during the Chinese Civil War to the present day, the idea of People’s War has gone through several revisions, but the crux remains the same. Warfighting proficiency must be pursued through all possible means at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. The United States understands this in the modern context as being able to field a proficient joint force capable of combined arms and multi-domain operations. However, due to having to include party loyalty as a prerequisite for promotion, the PLA suffers from an acute “Big Army Mentality” that prevents the realization of an effective joint force. Consider the service component composition of the 2022 CMC. Four of these officials ...
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