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China’s Xi emphasized the primacy of the Communist Party over the military in a recent speech.
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An account of his speech may aim to show that Xi is in firm control despite recent purges.
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Xi has purged some military leaders and expressed concern about the military’s readiness.
China’s military is loyal and will faithfully execute the policies established by the Communist Party. Or at least that’s what China is trying to convince the world.
In June, Chinese leader Xi Jinping reminded the Central Military Commission – the country’s main political-military body – that the military reports to the Communist Party. “Xi emphasized the need to uphold the Party’s absolute leadership over the military and build a high-quality cadre team that is loyal, clean, responsible and capable of carrying out the mission of strengthening the military,” the state-controlled group said. . Global Times newspaper.
“Xi emphasized that political work is always the lifeline of the country’s military. The military must always be led by those who are trustworthy and loyal to the Party, and there must be no place for corruption within the military,” according to the Global Times, which often serves as a mouthpiece for China hawks. .
Xi’s reminder comes later purges which resulted in several seniors People’s Liberation Army officers being removed or arrested for corruption. But with China trying to project an image of military might, anything that suggests a divide between politicians and generals is worrying.
“If I were Xi, I would be worried about the perception that major shakeups in the PLA may have led the outside, particularly the Western world, to think that I am vulnerable and that there is dissension between the PLA and the Party,” said Shanshan Mei. a political scientist at RAND Corp., a US think tank, told Business Insider.
For years, Xi has expressed concerns about China’s military, his exemplary piece of the nationalism he incited in his unprecedented third term and his most kinetic instrument for seizing Taiwan, confronting the USA and designing Chinese power abroad. But for more than a decade, the PLA was rocked by corruption scandals as it tried to control the corrupt businesses run by many officials, from bribes paid to senior officials for promotions, for rocket fuel this turned out to be ordinary water. More recently, the elite commander and political commissar PLA Rocket Force – which controls nuclear missiles – were replaced by officers from other military branches.
Do Xi’s latest warnings reflect a lack of faith in his military or are they a prelude to more purges? “We don’t know,” Mei said. “Xi has doubts and has been explicit about whether his commanders at all levels are capable enough to command and lead for a long time.”
However, Mei highlighted that the article about Xi’s speech in the Global Times, which is an English-language publication, is different from what appears in official Chinese-language media. “Xi underlines PLA’s political loyalty at crucial meeting held at former revolutionary base,” read the Global Times headline.
But “all official Chinese websites use the standard story with less sensational titles,” Mei said. “In fact, this piece of propaganda has more to do with projecting an image of CMC unity to the outside world than revealing weakness,” she said, referring to the Central Military Commission chaired by Xi.
For democracies, the notion that a head of state would have to publicly remind a nation’s armed forces to be loyal and obedient seems bizarre. But in many authoritarian nations, the military is simultaneously the guarantor of the regime’s survival and the only force that can overthrow the government.
Thus, in China — as in the former Soviet Union, from which China learned a lot — the communist party keeps a close eye on the military. Political commissars are assigned to military units, ships, and submarines, where they share authority with the regular unit commander, with particular oversight over unit morale and political indoctrination.
But reconciling political control with military efficiency is a challenge. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Red Army Commissars served as co-commanders in military units. After repeated disasters caused in part by confusion and paralysis over who was in command, Stalin finally agreed to subordinate the commissars to the regular commanders.
Xi, the son of a political commissar, believes China’s military needs more political motivation. During the June speech, he “analyzed the deep-seated problems that need to be addressed in military political work, emphasizing that the root cause of these problems lies in the lack of ideals and beliefs,” the Global Times said.
In addition to military corruption, Xi is also concerned about what he sees as a decadence in Chinese society – especially among young people – that is undermining China’s military power. In his opinion, “PLA youth do not want to die for their country,” Mei said. “They prefer video games, Korean boy bands and silently giving up.”
Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine and other publications. He holds a master’s degree in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him Twitter It is LinkedIn.
Read the original article at Business Insider
