China's hollow military

As for the caliber of China's military manpower, it is hard to be more damning than the Pentagon's most recent report on PRC military capabilities. It acknowledges that Chinese troops are generally patriotic, fit and good at basic infantry fighting skills, but then goes on to say:

Ground force leadership, training in combined operations, and morale are poor. The PLA is still a party army with nepotism and political/family connections continuing to predominate in officer appointment and advancement. The soldiers, for the most part, are semi-literate rural peasants; there is no professional NCO [non-commissioned officer] corps, per se. Military service, with its low remuneration and family disruption, is increasingly seen as a poor alternative to work in the private sector.(10)

China's military training is elsewhere assessed as getting better, though still weak, particularly as concerns joint service operations.

With respect to the hardware on which those troops rely, the Defense Intelligence Agency expects that, by 2010 or so, perhaps 10 percent of China's overall military will have acquired "late Cold War equivalent" heavy equipment and become reasonably proficient in employing it. Even that will leave them twenty years behind the American curve - and the remaining 90 percent of the force more obsolescent yet.

Projecting Power

So much for an assessment of China's overall military readiness. Some would argue that this type of analysis misses the point in any case. Many American analysts contend that while the United States should not fret too much about China's traditional military power, it should recognize that Beijing, having watched the Gulf War on CNN, might utilize "asymmetric warfare" to threaten American interests in the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea. By employing advanced cruise missiles, sea mines, sub-marines, imaging satellites, anti-satellite weapons, computer viruses and other specialized weaponry, China would wage "local war under high-tech conditions" in a manner that exploits American vulnerabilities.

There is a kernel of truth in this concern - militaries, after all, routinely seek to exploit the weaknesses of their adversaries. But it is only a kernel. To defeat Taiwan, for instance, China would need to land enough troops on the island to overcome Taiwan's quarter million-strong ground forces (plus some fraction of its 1.5 million man reserve force). But currently China cannot even move a quarter million soldiers overland into Mongolia or Vietnam. What is more, this type of power projection is precisely the type of operation that future military technology may render even more difficult.

The sum total of China's amphibious transport capacity (about 70 ships) can move 10,000 to 15,000 troops. Its airborne transport may carry 6000 more.(11) True, China could utilize fishing vessels and cargo ships, and tap its civilian air fleet, for an operation against Taiwan. But all of these vessels, military and civilian, would be fiercely attacked before they reached the island. Making matters worse for China is the fact that there are only a few suitable beachheads on Taiwan where PRC forces could land.