Modern studies of civil--military relations recognise that the military is separate from civil society, with its own norms and values, principles of organization, and regulations. Key issues of concern include the means by which – and the extent to which – the civil power controls the military; and also the ways in which military values and approaches permeate and affect wider society. This book examines these issues in relation to China, covering the full range of Chinese history from the Zhou, Qin, and Han dynasties up to the Communist takeover in 1949. It traces how civil--military relations were different in different periods, explores how military specialization and professionalization developed, and reveals how military weakness often occurred when the civil authority with weak policies exerted power over the military. Overall, the book shows how attitudes to the military’s role in present day Communist China were forged in earlier periods.

This new book addresses three key issues: What has changed in Chinese civil-military relations? What can account for changes? And what are the implications for Chinese security policy and strategic behaviour? It tackles these questions by sharply assessing civil-military dynamics in elite politics; such dynamics in national security and arms control policy; relations between commanders and political commissars; relations between the PLA and society; civil-military dynamics regarding defence economics and logistics; and such dynamics regarding dual-use technologies and defence industry. These analyses build into the central theme that the emphasis of Chinese civil-military relations is shifting from politics to military tasks. This is an extremely important new development by a nation many predict to become a super power in the twenty-first century. This is therefore essential reading for all students and scholars of strategic and security studies, Chinese studies and international relations.

This work provides an in-depth and up-to-date examination of civil-military relations in China. It reflects the significant changes taking place in Chinese society and their impact on the civil-military dynamic, with particular attention to how the military will fit in with the new class of entrepreneurs. Rather than focusing exclusively on elite Party-Army relations, the book examines civil-military relations from various vantage points: at "the center" and in the provinces; between civilian leaders and military leaders; from a strictly military perspective and from a civilian perspective; and from the angle of specific issue areas. Chapters explore issues, such as the impact of AIDS, the defense budget, the emerging dynamic between the military and China's new leadership, resettling demobilized troops back into civilian life, and the role of the militia, reserve units, and other civilian groups. The contributors are highly respected specialists in China studies, including political scientists, historians, PLA specialists, and sociologists. They present a vibrant portrait of the new civil-military dynamic in the PRC within the complex social changes that China is exploring today.

This book demonstrates that civil-military relations have evolved beyond symbiosis to quasi-institutionalization in post-Deng Xiaoping China. As the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is a Leninist party-army, it is commonly assumed that the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the PLA is symbiotic and institutional boundaries based on a clear functional division of labor are absent between the two. This symbiosis suggests that the primary role of the PLA is in China’s domestic politics; it is to participate in intra-CCP leadership power struggle and in defending the CCP regime against popular rebellions from within Chinese society. By analyzing major changes in the functions of the PLA political commissar system, the extent of the PLA involvement in the power struggle of the CCP leadership, and the circulation of elites across civil-military institutional boundaries, this book offers a new theoretical explanation of civil-military relations in China. It also discusses the implications of the findings for China’s domestic politics and foreign policy.

Chinese military history has emerged as one of the most promising and radical fields of Chinese studies. China's rapidly increasing military power make understanding the place of war in Chinese culture, as well as the role of the military, and Chinese strategic thought, vital to dealing with this possible threat. The recent flourishing of scholarship in this area has begun to allow an equivalent comparison with western and world military history, leading to a new understanding of war as a historical and cultural phenomenon, as well as revising earlier analyses of the significance of war in Chinese history. Assembled in this volume is a selection of articles that present earlier approaches to Chinese military history as well as the most recent trends in research. The introductory essay provides an overview of the field of Chinese military history and its significance in the study of China, as well as pointing out encouraging new developments in recent scholarship.

The question of boundaries - physical or political - has become fertile ground in the analysis of Chinese history and society. These essays cover the early decades of the Zhou dynasty to the early centuries after the Manchu conquest.

A Civil–military relation describes the relationship between civil society as a whole and the military organization established to protect it. More narrowly, it describes the relationship between the civil authority of a given society and its military authority. Studies of civil-military relations often rest on a normative assumption that civilian control of the military is preferable to military control of the state. The principal problem they examine, however, is empirical: to explain how civilian control over the military is established and maintained. Civil-military relations are those interactions between the military and civilian actors that in some way relate to the power to make political decisions. Traditionally, the study of civil-military relations levitated around questions of who is master and who is servant in civil-military relations and who “guards the guardians” of the nation. In other words: the question of civilian control is at the heart of civil-military relations. Even though in recent years, especially with the fall of the Berlin Wall, democratization processes in eastern Europe, the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the proliferation of peace-building missions and programs in so-called post-conflict societies, the concept of security sector governance or security sector reform has gained prominence in the academic and policy-oriented literature, civilian control remains the central issue in civil-military relations in emerging democracies. The book deeply highlights the civil-military relation and its strategies.

This book explores China's place in the ‘new international order’, from both the international perspective and from the perspective within China. It discusses how far the new international order, as outlined by George Bush in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Kuwait in the Gulf War, with its notions of ‘international order’, as viewed by the United States, and with the United States seeing itself as the single dominant power, applies to China. The contributors offer the implications, both positive and negative, of China's growing economic power, and the possibility that China will increase its military power. They also examine the idea that the Chinese leadership is being carried along itself by events in China, which it does not fully control, and that other growing forces within China, such as nationalism, increasing social grievances, structural instability, and rivalry between the centre and the regions potentially work against China's growing strength in the international arena. Considering traditional Chinese notions of ‘international’ power, where the world is seen as sino-centric, with neighbouring countries subservient to China in varying degrees, the book argues that this represents a fundamentally different view of the international order, one where the equal sovereignty of every state does not apply, where there is an acknowledged hierarchy of power, and where domestic and international issues are highly interdependent.