Xi Jinping wants China’s armed forces to be “world-class” by 2050
OVER THE PAST decade, the People’s Liberation Army has been lavished with money and weaponry. Chinese military spending rose by 83% between 2009 and 2018, by far the largest growth spurt of any big country. This splurge has enabled China to deploy precision missiles and anti-satellite weapons that challenge America’s supremacy in the western Pacific. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, says his “Chinese dream” includes a “dream of a strong armed forces”.
Mr Xi has followed suit. Before his reforms, army and navy commanders in the country’s seven military regions would report to their respective service headquarters, with little or no co-ordination. In February 2016 Mr Xi replaced the regions with five “theatres”, each under a single commander . The eastern one based in Nanjing would prepare for war with Taiwan and Japan, for instance. The sprawling western theatre, in Chengdu, would handle India.
It is hard to tell whether the new PLA is more proficient on the battlefield. China has not fought a war in four decades. The last Chinese soldiers with experience of a large-scale conflict—a war with Vietnam in 1979—will retire shortly. Mr Xi is an authoritarian who strives for centralised control. His predecessor, Hu Jintao, did not have a tight grip on the PLA, says Mr Saunders. That is because Mr Hu’s own predecessor, Jiang Zemin, had appointed the two vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission, a powerful body that oversees the armed forces. They stayed throughout Mr Hu’s tenure, frustrating any efforts to reform the PLA and curb its endemic corruption and ill-discipline.
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