CONFERENCE ON CHINESE MILITARY STUDIES:
THE STATE OF THE FIELD 

China Studies Center, National Defense University 

26-27 October 2000 

"The People’s Liberation Army-Navy: Ten Issues" 

Bernard D. Cole
National War College

This paper expresses the opinions of the author and may not reflect those of the National War College, the National Defense University, or any agency of the U.S. Government. 

This paper may not be cited or quoted without the express permission of the author.

             The People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) has, since its founding in 1950, been the stepchild of the PLA and hence a national security strategy tool not fully developed by Beijing.  Maritime operations to seize Nationalist-held islands following the 1949 establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were inconsistently and even amateurishly carried out.  The conflicts in Korea (1950-53), India (1962), and Vietnam (1965-73, 1979), lacked a significant maritime element.

            Since the seminal change in China’s strategic thinking that occurred in 1985, however, when Beijing's focus shifted from global nuclear war to small wars on the periphery, the PLAN has been in a position to move to the strategic forefront.  It has not, a situation probably resulting from China’s continuing continentalist orientation.  Despite the emergence of maritime areas of concern in bordering seas, Beijing's strategic thinking apparently remains dominated by the history of threats to the nation originating in the north and west, and a reliance on ground forces to defend vital interests. 

            The PLAN has been the largest Asian navy since the 1960s; it is currently more modern and capable than at any time in its history.  The PLAN is not the most capable indigenous force in the region, however, given the current and likely continued state of the Japanese navy, called the Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), the Republic of South Korea’s navy (ROKN), and the Indian navy.  Even Taiwan’s navy currently poses a tough challenge for the PLAN.

               Our knowledge about the PLAN is far from satisfactory, due to lack of access and the PLA's very strong concern for secrecy.  Open-source publications such as the various Jane’s Information Group volumes, the U.S. Naval Institute’s Combat Fleets of the World, the International Institute of Strategic Studies The Military Balance, and other books, journals, and web-sites offer a great deal of information about PLAN hardware, much less about PLAN organization, and almost nothing about the crucial “software” areas such as maintenance, training and education, doctrine, tactics, and the amorphous area of “operational art.”  The efforts of U.S. naval attaches stationed in China are limited by language and access shortcomings.  While the various intelligence services may be overcoming these difficulties, I am not optimistic on that score.

            For the purposes of this session, I have tried to address areas of the PLAN about which we know very little, from nuts and bolts to broader questions. 

            ·First, what maintenance system—if any—does the PLAN utilize?  Is it navy-wide, with requirements and measures of effectiveness dictated from PLAN headquarters?  Is it integrated with the navy supply system?  Is there a system designed to ensure periodic, measured care of all levels of equipment, from small arms to ship hulls?  Is this maintenance system integrated with a navy-wide supply system? 

Bottom Line: modern shipboard and aircraft systems are sophisticated and require methodical, skilled "care and feeding;" is maintenance performed the same way and to the same standards by different operating units?

            ·Second, does the PLAN have a navy-wide supply system?  Is it centrally controlled from PLAN headquarters, or from the headquarters of the three geographic fleets?  How is the system constructed: do individual operating units maintain large stocks of supplies on-hand, or are the depots at the garrison, base, fleet, or PLAN headquarters level?

Bottom Line: when a piece of equipment suffers a component failure, what is the procedure for obtaining a replacement part, and how long does it take?

            ·Third, what are the curricula of the PLAN education systems, from undergraduate naval academy to the Nanjing Naval College?  What percentage of a student’s time is devoted to ideological subject-matter and what percentage to technical and operational subjects?

Bottom Line: are PLAN officers being educated to operate a 21^st century navy, or is there excessive reliance on ideological indoctrination?

            ·Fourth, what is the process for acquiring warships, from initial mission-requirements to operational unit?  We know only the bare bones of the military-industrial infrastructure responsible for this process; how do design requirements originate?  What is the relationship between state bureau and private sector vendors during the process of design, construction, and test and evaluation?  The recent PRC White Paper made much of China’s ability to design and build new military systems, but this braggadocio is not supported by China's continuing resort to foreign sources for relatively modern naval and air systems.  The Sovremenny-class guided-missile destroyers and Kilo-class submarines, for instance, are much superior to indigenously produced PLAN ships but based largely on 1970s technology.

Bottom Line: China is not currently capable of building even a ca. 1990 warship; how close is its scientific-research-industrial infrastructure to achieving state-of-the-art capability?

            ·Fifth, how are PLAN enlisted and officer personnel trained to operate and maintain their equipment?  Is there a centrally controlled schools-structure that encompasses maintenance and operating training?  To what degree is this control centralized at PLAN headquarters—or do the naval base schools command operate relatively independently?  To what degree does the Central Military Committee influence PLAN training?

Bottom Line: are personnel in all three geographic fleets trained to the same standards?

As a second part of this question, how are PLAN ship and aircraft crews trained, especially in view of the widely disparate systems in place?  That is, is there an orderly progression of training syllabi from individual equipment skills to crew-wide evolutions—from teaching a sailor how to operate a single console, to exercising an entire ship’s company?  Furthermore, are training syllabi standardized across the three fleets?

Bottom Line: can a sailor transferred between ships, and ships transferred between fleets, operate effectively and to the same standard?

            ·Sixth, what are the parameters of the personnel-evaluation system in the PLAN?  Specifically, while copies of the various evaluation forms and standards would be informative, what is the influence on evaluations of the ideological factor, especially for officers?  Are distinct factors of ideological reliability and technical proficiency considered, and how to they relate?

Bottom Line: what are the important factors for career success in the PLAN?

            ·Seventh, how does the PLAN devise and implement doctrine?  Does the PLAN train and operate in accordance with standard doctrine?  If so, is doctrine written at headquarters in Beijing, at the Naval Research Institute, at the fleet level, or by some other organization in the PLAN?  Does new doctrine accompany new equipment or strategy? 

Bottom Line: is doctrine in the PLAN standardized, timely, and implemented by all three fleets in the same manner?

            ·Eighth, how are tactics developed, tested, and implemented?  How are new tactics introduced to operating units and how are they trained to implement the new tactics?  Is a system in place to ensure that all three fleets are trained at the same tactical level?  Is there a process for operating units to originate tactics, for those tactics to become part of operational doctrine and to be introduced to the rest of the PLAN?

Bottom Line: is there a structure for the development of, training in, and standardization of tactics?

            ·Ninth, what is the state of individual, crew, and multi-ship/aircraft unit operational proficiency?  How capable is the PLAN of carrying out medium and large-scale complex operations, especially in the face of determined opposition?  The PLAN has never fought such a sea-battle; apart from operational efficiency, is the shore establishment—encompassing, maintenance, supply, and logistics, personnel—capable of supporting an operating fleet?  Despite the occasional verbiage in press reports and interviews with individual PLA officers, to what degree is the PLAN really oriented towards and trained in conducting joint operations?

Bottom Line: is the PLAN trained, equipped, and manned to fight effectively at sea?

            ·Tenth, and perhaps most importantly, how does Beijing intend employing the navy?  Almost all observers think the PLAN is incapable of conducting an amphibious assault against Taiwan (or any other fortified and ready landmass), for instance, and yet there is no evidence that the PLAN is being developed to carry out such a mission.  Similarly, although China is modernizing its navy, it is doing so at a very moderate pace and without significantly increasing the numbers of ships or aircraft.  The recent doubling of the Marine Corps’ size still means a relatively small amphibiously trained force of about 12,000 troops.[1] Other apparently vital Chinese maritime interests include sovereignty disputes, fishing resources, petroleum fields, and sea lines of communication, and yet a PLAN capable of prevailing in disputes over these interests does not appear to be under development.

Bottom Line: why is China not engaged in a major effort to build and deploy a 21^st-century PLAN? 

These points highlight our lack of exact knowledge about the PLAN. Maintenance, supply and logistics, education and training, personnel management, doctrine, tactics, operational efficiency, and employment intentions all lack definition.

Improving our understanding of China's navy requires the dedication of increased resources by government and private observers and scholars to studying the PLAN.