The People's Liberation Army must have one of the
most extensive military industrial complexes in the world, employing
some 700,000 employees in about 10,000 enterprises. It has always
provided for its own food and other needs, including military hardware.
This translates into extensive farm holdings, textile plants and
industrial facilities. The decentralization of military production to
the interior that was decided upon in the early 1960s, the so-called
"Third Front policy", was an attempt to make every region completely
self-sufficient in military needs, leading to a massive squandering of
funds and resources. It has turned the PLA in the eyes of some
specialists into the world's largest military museum, or into a
junkyard army.
The PLA's industrial base became an excellent point of departure in the 1980s, when Deng Xiaoping's
policy of economic reform forced the military more or less to finance
its own modernization, due to a relative decline in the official
budget. By conversion of part of its industries to civilian production,
the Army was able to supplement its income. As a result of the Open Door policy,
China was able to do extensive window-shopping abroad, thus getting
acquainted with the world's advanced weaponry. In order to earn funds
to acquire technology for domestic production, China became a major
player in the world of conventional and nuclear arms sales through such
corporations as Norinco and Poly Inc. Joint ventures were another
source of military technology. Primary weapons exports include field
artillery and anti-aircraft artillery, including rocket launchers and
short-range missiles, armored personnel carries and tanks. China's
advantage in the world market is mainly that its technology is
appropriate for Third World customers, including maintenance, and that
its level of prices is lower than that of other arms suppliers.
 |
 |
The PLA MIC activities are not merely limited to
military ventures: the production of consumer durables, property
development and the hotel industry are also the Army's business
nowadays. Coupled with the consumer boom in China, the erosion of
security that the old system provided, and the rising inequality of
income, these commercial activities have contributed to an alarming
rise of corruption in the Army. As a result, the image of the PLA has
suffered enormously. In 1998, the Party demanded that the PLA withdraw
from non-military commercial activities, but it remains unclear to what
extent this order has been heeded.
Sources:
Flemming Christiansen & Shirin Rai, Chinese Politics and Society—An Introduction (London etc.: Prentice Hall 1996)
Andrew J. Nathan & Robert S. Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress—China's Search for Security (New York etc.: W.W. Norton & Company 1997)
Return to
the People's Liberation Army
s.r.landsberger@let.leidenuniv.nl
|
search this site!  |
International Institute of Social History