PLA ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT

 John F. Corbett, Jr. and Edward C. O’Dowd 

CHINESE MILITARY STUDIES: A CONFERENCE ON THE STATE OF THE FIELD
26 – 27 OCTOBER 2000
FORT MCNAIR, WASHINGTON, DC 

Background: 

            Although the technology, doctrine, resources, force structure, and demographics are vital areas of study for the understanding of any military institution, the organization and management of people and materiel cannot be slighted. The key to bringing military power to bear in an effective manner is found in the way military forces are organized and managed. This presentation will deal with several areas of organization and management that provide important insights in assessing the quality of the force that defends China and carries out the military polices of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese state. 

Framework for Analysis: 

            A fundamental starting point for understanding what makes a military system is to determine who is in charge and how leadership and management is exercised.  Inherent in these questions are the requirements to understand the hierarchies of organization for the military system in question, the relationship among the components of the system, the channels for management, command and control, and the ethos shared by participants in the system. 

Once a baseline understanding is established, one can better understand the changes taking place in the system as it undergoes a modernization process.  One can understand the impact of organizational changes and track the evolution of management principles that translate into military effectiveness.  The Chinese People’s Liberation Army is a military challenged to keep pace with a world that is rapidly changing both inside and outside China. Twenty five years ago, the Chinese military was a  closed, secretive, compartmented, stove-piped system.  Authority resided at the most senior levels of an extremely hierarcharial top down system.  As China has opened up, as the information and technological advances have forced change, and as China moves from a centralized planned economic (and political and social) system to a more open market economic system, the PLA has and will continue to undergo changes. The reforms of the military’s professional education system, the increased technological sophistication of the PLA’s equipment and demands for more technologically competent soldiers, demand a more flexible, responsive management system and an organizational structure that can support the changing requirements.  Is this happening?  How and with what success? 

            The challenge as we examine the “State of the Field” in the area of “Organization and Management” is to define the baseline for analysis, identify the key nodes where we should focus our attention, and determine the key questions or factors we should be tracking or trying to answer.  

Organization: 

            The PLA of the year 2000 is a vast institution with lots of “moving parts” that need to be coordinated and controlled to allow it to accomplish its missions. The days of the “single service war” ended in 1979. The PLA can no longer simply rely on massive numbers of infantrymen and a large number of artillery pieces to conduct successful military operations. 

            The organizational structure of the PLA has changed.  The modes of leadership have changed.  How are these changes related?  Can we define a new management philosophy or organizational ethos for the new PLA?  Is the new organizational ethos marked by --

Within this changing organizational ethos, what is the impact of the ongoing reform of the professional education of leaders?  For example, does the rising generation of leaders better understand the implications of changing management styles? 

Beyond the broad question above addressing the PLA’s organizational ethos, there many more areas that need to be examined.  The following questions are a starting point. 

            Theaters or joint commands are essential for conducting modern warfare. In recent years the PLA has developed a “Joint Campaign Program” (Jan ’99) and worked to develop a uniform “joint” vocabulary.  Furthermore, the PLA has strengthened the logistics role of the military regions a time when many observers were ready to consign the military regions to the dustbin of history. What is the status of developing a command and control element to organize large joint forces? 

            Recently the PLA established a General Equipment Department and reorganized the military educational system. Yet, there is no evidence of cross- fertilization of between the armament developers and the military thinkers. Furthermore, the users and logisticians do not seem to be represented in force development decisions. How are force development decisions made the PLA? Are they simply political decisions?  What organizations participate in this process, if there is one? 

            Traditionally, Chinese forces have been directed from the CMC (the Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party) and the general departments, especially the General Staff Department (GSD) and the General Political Department (GPD) in Beijing. Has this system changed? Would local commanders have greater latitude to “task organize” today? How would a Taiwan theater of operations be organized? How would an internal war theater of operations be organized in Tibet? 

            The PLA is composed of a wide variety of organizational forms (e.g. regular divisions/brigades, reserve divisions, People’s Armed Police (PAP) units, militia units etc.) How does the PLA plan to integrate these elements? Or does it?  How is the PLA organized to command, control and support this bewildering assembly of elements? 

            How are naval, air and naval air forces organized for extended operations? 

            The PLA has generally maintained a force disposition (basing locations and unit locations) that has remained unchanged since the withdrawal of forces from North Korea in the late 1950’s, with some minor adjustments during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.  The major streamlining and restructuring that accompanied the one million man reduction announced in 1985 and the 500,000 man reduction in 1997 was accompanied by a consolidation of units and facilities.  The restructuring of PAP, the upgrading of reserve structure in the late 1990’s, the expansion of the Second Artillery, the restructuring of the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND), the establishment of the General Equipment Department and the consolidation of military region logistics organizations into joint service logistics departments, to cite a few, naturally have impact on the physical disposition of PLA force structure and the way they are controlled and managed.  Can we define these changes and what impact they have had on mission and effectiveness? 

Management: 

According to Joint Chiefs of  Staff  Publication One, management is “A process of establishing and attaining objectives to carry out responsibilities. Management consists of continuing actions of planning, organizing, directing, coordinating controlling and evaluating the use of men money, materials and facilities to accomplish missions and tasks” (p.206).  PLA military writings on management (guanli) generally mirror the Joint Staff definition of management.  In the PLA the study of management cannot be analyzed without a thorough understanding of the cadre system, the political work system, the personnel system and all other aspects of human resources management. Studies of PLA management should include all departments, regions, branches and services of the PLA 

How has the role of the cadre (officer) system changed since the end of the Maoist Era? How are cadre recruited, trained, and motivated. What are the duties of today’s cadre?  What is the relationship between cadres and soldiers in today’s PLA? How do leaders and managers motivate subordinates? To what degree are PLA units cohesive, mission-oriented groups? What are the formal and informal discipline systems in PLA units?  

            Management and leadership are exercised in the context of soldier and unit morale.  Therefore, the context needs to be examined and the programs and policies that shape morale and motivation are especially important.  So we ask--  What are the attitudes of Chinese soldiers towards service, promotion, conditions of service and their prospects after demobilization/retirement? How is PLA morale today? What are the methods of morale building in today’s PLA? What are the themes of PLA troop indoctrination? 

            Since 1988 the PLA has been developing a civilian cadre (wenzhi ganbu) system.

 What is the status of China’s efforts to build this force? How is this force managed, employed and motivated? What is the relationship between this force, the uniformed services and the reserves/militia?   

            What is the status of the development of a Chinese non-commissioned officer corps (NCO)?   How do Chinese NCOs lead, manage and motivate soldiers? How do these first line supervisors interact with the political officers and the political work system?  How are NCOs selected, trained, assigned and managed?           

How are women and minorities recruited, motivated, trained and employed it the PLA? Most PLA women serve in the medical, administrative, political, communications and scientific elements of the PLA. What are the assignment restrictions and assignment patterns of minorities? Is there friction between minority soldiers and local people? Are there ethnic tensions in PLA units? 

Are the PLA’s support activities (e.g. intelligence, logistics, communications and medical etc.) integrated and managed in such a way as to contribute to combat effectiveness? 

Does the PLA have a consistent, uniform process for developing unit organizations, training programs and personnel policies for managing its force?  Answering this question requires investigation into some fundamental conceptual processes wherein the PLA approach may differ U.S. from conceptual approaches, thus complicating our ability to understand what is going on.  For example, beyond the question of what is the PLA’s doctrine, which is covered well in other presentations, the question pertinent to PLA organization and management is how does the PLA develop its doctrine?  What is the relationship between the PLA’s perceptions of strategic threat to its process of doctrinal development and force planning?  This question circles back to an earlier question on the nature and content of the PLA’s professional education and development system.   

What is the professional “ethics” of the PLA?  To what degree are these ethics accepted at all levels of the PLA?  What integrity problems are common among officers? Non-commissioned officers?  Soldiers?  Do these problems impair combat effectiveness? 

A broad area of analysis that incorporates concepts of organization and management, but crosses into the practical world of running the PLA is command and control.  More than the physical dimension of hardware that supports the PLA command and control system, we need to look at who the leaders are, how they rose to their leadership positions, what are there formal and informal roles, what is the source of their authority, to what extent do they have authority commensurate with their responsibilities, how do they exercise authority, and what is the nature of  their interpersonal relationships within the PLA?  Do these relationships contribute to military effectiveness?   

Research Strategy: 

These questions can be answered through normal political science, sociological and historical methodologies. Additionally, researchers can attempt questionnaires/ surveys, focus interviews, informal conversations and personal observations. Since many of these questions deal with attitudes and opinions the best strategies for answering them are strategies that involve interviewing and informal conversations. A group of sources that have not been widely used is the increasing number of Chinese émigrés, some with military experiences, which have moved to the U.S.  Although the researcher must always be aware of the biases of these sources, they can provide a wide variety of useful information for research in this field.                                                                                      

            Recently, several analysts, such as Lonnie Henley in his paper at the 1999 PLA conference at the Army War College and Thomas Bickford in his May 2000 Asian Survey article, have pointed out the growing number of PLA regulations that have been revised or published.  An effort to collect, analyze, and assess these regulations should be done.  This analysis is likely to shed light on a wide variety of areas contributing to our understanding of PLA organization and management including military ranks, terms of service, political work, logistics, training and operations. 

Resources: 

            Classics.  For nearly twenty years the basic references for students of the PLA in the area of organization and management have been a core of works including:  Harvy Nelson’s “The Chinese Military System: An Organizational Study of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army”, 2d edition, 1981;  Harlan Jencks’ “From Muskets to Missiles: Politics and Professionalism in the Chinese Army: 1945 – 1981”, 1982;  and Ellis Joffe’s “The Chinese Army After Mao”, 1987. 

            “Directory of PLA Military Personalities”, an unclassified compiliation of organizational and personnel identifications derived from open source official Chinese language publications.  Published with limited distribution generally on an annual basis since July 1983.  The next edition goes to press in November 2000.   

            Forthcoming studies.  Two major works which will address organization and management issues are in the advanced stage of preparation for publication.  The first one due to be published is David Shambaugh’s book “Reforming China’s Military”, which he describes as a comprehensive look at the PLA covering “everything from the defense budget to commercial activity to force structure to doctrine to party/army relations to threat perceptions to US policy implications.”  This will be a welcome addition to the collection of “clasics” and serve as an updated baseline document for study of organization and management in the PLA.  The second is an ambitious project “The PLA as Organization”, sponsored by RAND Corporation and the China Association for Political Science (CAPS).  This project aims to produce the definitive study of the organization and structure of the PLA, with chapters addressing in detail the PLA’s organizational structure and discussion of the mission and function of each organizational component.  Both studies, taken together, will result in a major update of the analytical baseline on the PLA organization and structure, contributing to a better framework for analysis of the management system. 

            Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS).  FBIS and its British counterpart, Summary of World Broadcasts, are basic resources providing translations of Chinese press and media materials.  FBIS, however, has been faced with a steady reduction in funding that has reduced the volume of information translated, greatly reduced the core of experienced linguist and analysts working on the translations.  A very recent decision resulting from budget cuts, is that FBIS with greatly reduce the number of hard copy publications subscribed to and translated.  FBIS is relying mainly on internet for Chinese source information.  Unfortunately, the process of extracting information from hard copy publications and placing the information on the internet web usually involves editorial decisions to reduce the volume.  Consequently, the information published on the internet usually is less complete that what is published hard copy. 

            Chinese official, open press.  One positive trend linked to China’s process of reform and opening up has been the information revolution.  The PLA, like most other institutions in China, has become more aware of the importance of broad access to information by members of the PLA.  This has led to increased access and availability of military publications previously not available to the outside world.  Today the official newspaper for each military region, the services and top military schools are available via subscription to the outside world.  Ironically, the FBIS budget cutbacks mean this resource is not being exploited nearly to its potential. 

            Direct contact with PLA officials.  The number of PLA officers visiting the United States at any given time is generally on the increase.  This is a resource the China Center should incorporate into its routine research programs.  Sources for access to the PLA include visiting fellows at universities and think tanks, participants in official military  to military exchange  programs, and attendees in formal academic courses.