China's maturing navy

Naval War College Review, Spring, 2006 by Eric A. McVadon

Details aside, an important and yet unanswered question is whether the PLA Navy wants officers better educated or considers them better Red. That is, will competent, forward-thinking officers be selected for flag rank, or will party loyalty and personal connections continue to prevail as the paramount selection criteria? (9) This author has lectured and conferred at the National Defense University and other PLA institutions on several occasions at which junior officers asked all the questions and did all the talking while flag and general officers who were students remained silent--at least in part, it appeared, for fear of being outshone in these lively and insightful discussions. It would seem that at some point the demands of a modern PLA will force the promotion of more of the officers who have all the intelligent questions and original thoughts.

Organization is improving, but maybe not yet enough. The PLA Navy structure has been streamlined: naval aviation no longer stands alone as though an almost separate service; closer ties have been established with the PLAN's marine corps; and there are fewer layers in the chain of command. (10) Nevertheless, the author has observed and been told, there is still much deadwood at the top: individuals in green uniforms with two or more stars on their shoulders (PLA ground-force generals) who persist in treating the PLAN as mostly an adjunct to the army, and senior officers who, through lack of vision, fail to move decisively toward true joint operations. These generals represent obstacles at a time when real coordination with the 2nd Artillery Corps and the PLA Air Force would lead to enormous advances in the ability to polish off Taiwan, threaten American intervention capabilities, and keep Japan off balance.

China's navy is still failing to conduct exercises needed to develop its potential capability. It continues to steam in the littoral for the most part. However, the PLAN aspires to, and is erratically striving to conduct, training and exercises in more distant waters; to make its training more like combat; to challenge itself in exercises with active, maneuvering opposition forces; and otherwise to add realism to its training and exercise activity. It has even been so bold as to engage, in August 2005, in a major multiphased exercise with the Russian Navy, a notable advance beyond the minor, very basic exercises it has conducted with the French, British, Australian, Pakistani, and Indian navies in recent years. (11) A few years ago the PLAN would not have participated in such exercises at all, fearing not only prying (as well as spying) but embarrassment, that its shortcomings and backwardness would be revealed. Chinese naval leaders now seem sufficiently confident in their crews to seek international partners for exercises. (It will be interesting to see if several unflattering post-exercise Russian media reports rejuvenate concerns that bilateral exercises lead to ridicule and embarrassment.) (12)

Still, the import of the Russian-Chinese exercise should not be overstated. It was initially described by many as preparation for countering U.S. forces in the region. As later and more accurately described, however, it primarily demonstrated that Sino-Russian bilateral relations are strong, especially military-to-military relations and arms sales. The exercise itself, held in waters just off the Shandong Peninsula, was hardly a simulation of access denial against approaching U.S. forces. Its significance in that respect would seem to be less direct. The fact that it was held at all suggests that the Russians are more likely than we might have surmised to provide logistic and possibly intelligence support--specifically, to offer to resupply missiles and spare parts for the key Russian weapon systems that China would employ in combat with Taiwan and the United States. (13)