1. For some previous work on this subject, see, inter alia, Jammes, Sydney, “The Chinese defence burden, 1965–74,” in Joint Economic Committee, 94th U.S. Congress, China: A Reassessment of the Economy (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1975), pp. 459–466Google Scholar; Godwin, Paul H. B., “China's defense dilemma: the modernization crisis of A 1976 and 1977,” Contemporary China, Fall 1978, pp. 63–85Google Scholar; Romance, Francis J., “Modernization of China's armed forces,” Asian Survey, 03 1980, pp. 298–310Google Scholar; Fraser, Angus M., “Military modernization in China,” Problems of Communism 09–12 1979, pp. 34–49Google Scholar; Shambaugh, David L, “China's quest for military modernization,” Assian Affairs, 05–06 1979, pp. 295–309Google Scholar; and Luttwak, Edward N., “Problems of military modernization for mainland China,” Issues and Studies, 07 1978, pp. 53–65.Google Scholar

2. The initial task of analysing people's war into its constituent elements was done in Harris, Jack's excellent article, “Enduring Chinese dimensions in Peking's military policy and doctrines,” Issues and Studies, 07 1979, pp. 77–88.Google Scholar

3. The term was authoritatively mentioned by the “Theoretical group of the national defense scientific and technological commission, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS),” Daily Report-People's Republic of China (PRC), 23 01 1978, pp. E1–E6Google Scholar, and was given sanction by the then defence minister, Xü Xiangqian, in his Army Day article “Heighten our vigilance and get prepared to fight a war,” Peking Review, No. 32 (11 08 1978), pp. 5–11.Google Scholar

4. The term was authoritatively mentioned by the “Theoretical group of the national de fense scientific and technological commission, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service People's Liberation Army. See, in that regard, Gittings, John, The Role of the Army (London: Oxford University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Kau, Ying-mao, The People's Liberation Army and China's Nation-Building (White Plains, New York: International Arts and Science Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Whitson, William W., The Chinese High Command (New York: Praeger, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nelson, Harvey, The Chinese Military System, Revised edition (Boulder, Colo.: 2. Westview Press, 1981)Google Scholar; and Godwin, Paul H. B., Doctrine Strategy, and Ethic: The Modernization of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University, 1977).Google Scholar

5. The above set of distinctions owes much to the author's conversation with Dr. Frank Romance, U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency. The Chinese often seem to use “modernization” in a restricted sense, equivalent to economic/technological progress. This is only one aspect of an integrated process extending over a long period and including major changes in the political, cultural, social, and educational life of the country as well as economic changes. Urbanization, literacy, democratization, bureaucratization, the demographic transition, and modified socialization are some of the factors associated with overall “modernization,” not all of which are the mere products of industrialization. Almost all of them, however, are present in more or less full-blown form in China, and it is the complex interrelationships of that set with efforts to industrialize that will determine, in the end, the degree of success China will have in economic modernization. The Chinese leadership seems aware of this intricacy – witness the latter-day stress on education and birth control – but as yet lacks a sophisticated understanding of the complex requirements of overall progress.

6. Obviously a country of a billion people, packed into a limited geographic area, possessed of an ancient and proud-heritage, but faced with a technologically superior enemy must cleave to one or another variant of “people's war.” Change those basic variables and Chinese military strategy will also change.

7. The operative question is: how long will they be constants? The answer varies according to what factor one considers. The Soviet threat is a relative matter and could disappear in short order with a change in Soviet policy. The PLA's configuration will change with overall modernization, i.e. only slowly and probably not significantly for most of the 1980s. The Cultural Revolution's effects will not be definitively overcome for a generation – not until the close of the century.

If the experience of other countries is any guide, major changes in military configuration – strategy, equipment, societal role, etc. – come only after about a half century of concerted change in determining variables. The American military switched from an attrition to an annihilation strategy only after 75 years of independence. The Japanese army took 40 years to evolve from Samurai swordsmen to European-style military, while the German military modernized itself during the half century from 1816–66.

Perhaps modernization has speeded up hi the 20th century; the Chinese Army took only 22 years (1927–49) to attain its “modern” form. But that was due to the forcing house of constant combat. With the high rate of change imposed by the requirements of technology, modernizing military forces may find their time horizons stretching out rather than contracting. A half century is therefore still not a bad estimate. Presuming that, after 1950, about 15 years (1950–65) was spent hi military modernization, which began again in 1976, the Chinese military could look to becoming a thoroughly modernized force only in the first decade of the 21st century.

8. The four million plus PLA is composed largely of low paid highly motivated foot soldiers, whose absence from the village – until recently – has conferred benefits on the local and national economies. Given the continued abundance of such personnel, manpower can be treated as a fungible resource. And given the large number of units making up such a quantity-laden army, experiments involving variations hi unit size, composition, and tactics are relatively easy to carry out. Aside from one article of which the author is aware, there is no publicly available work on the economics of the Chinese military. The exception is Grossmann, Bernhard, “The People's Liberation Army: economic aspects,” in The Role of the People's Liberation Army, Vol. 1Google Scholar of Proceedings of a Conference on the PLA, Centre d'Etude du Sud-est et de l'Extrème Orient, Brussels, 17 June 1969.

9. Since the early 1970s, the Chinese have had to think primarily in terms of defence against Soviet land attack. But they have, seemingly, not thought carefully about a Russian nuclear offensive alone, unaccompanied by a ground attack, or of a limited ground of fensive in certain border areas. Moreover, until the late 1970s, Beijing did not eliminate the possibility of having to face the United States as well as the Soviet Union. Further, the rise of the Vietnamese challenge to Chinese security after 1976 and its military link with Moscow greatly complicated China's defence. And although India, Japan, and Taiwan are not now security threats, they could well be so in the foreseeable future. China has always sought, perforce, to simplify its defence by reducing it to one threat, in the 1950s the United States and in the 1970s the Soviet Union. It is doubtful whether such “reductionism” will last out the century or even in the 1980s.

10. For a guide to the massive literature, Chinese and western, on this matter, see the sources cited in the notes to Part I, “China's modernization programme,” of Barnett, A. Doak, China's Economy in Global Perspective (The Brookings Institute, 1981), pp. 586–628.Google Scholar

11. Aside from the sources cited in note 4, see also: Griffith, Samuel B., The Chinese People's Liberation Army (London: Oxford University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Jencks, Harlan, The Politics of Chinese Military Modernization, 1949–1977 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1978)Google Scholar; Joffe, Ellis, Party and Army: Professionalism and Political Control in the Chinese Officer Corps (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; and Whitson, William W. (ed.), The Military and Political Power in China in the 1970s (New York: Praeger, 1972).Google Scholar

12. For China's defence policy during the 1950s, see Garthoff, Raymond L. (ed.), Sino-Soviet Military Relations (New York: Praeger, 1966)Google Scholar; MacFarquhar, Roderick (ed.), Sino-American Relations, 1949–71 (New York: Praeger, 1972), pp. 59–181Google Scholar; and Hsieh, Alice Langley, Communist China's Strategy in the Nuclear Era (Englewood-Ciiffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962)Google Scholar. In light of subsequent events and data, it should now be possible to write a more comprehensive treatment of early Chinese communist defence policy.

13. On Peng's demise, see Union Research Institute, The Case of P'eng Teh-Huai (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968)Google Scholar; Charles, David A. (pseud.), “The dismissal of Marshall P'eng Teh-Huai,” The China Quarterly, No. 8 (10–12 1961), pp. 63–76Google Scholar; and MacFarquhar, Roderick, “High noon at Lushan,” m.s., 1981.Google Scholar

14. Robinson, Thomas W., A Politico-Military Biography of Lin Piao, Part II, 1950–1971, ms. 1971, pp. 24–43.Google Scholar

15. The Jammes Study (note 1) and the Nelsen book indicate that military investment declined during the first year of the Cultural Revolution, recovered to the 1966 level by the end of 1967, and moved modestly upward by the beginning of 1969. The major growth was in the 1969–71 period, coinciding with the greatest danger, relatively speaking, from the Soviet Union, with the necessity to direct the PLA to suppression of internal disorders, and with the disarray attendent upon the Lin Piao affair. Nelsen clearly shows the movement of major army units south from the Soviet border and toward the strife-laden cities. By 1969, the PLA's capability to defend the country had thus dropped considerably, especially in light of the concomitant Soviet military build-up along its side of the border.

16. This is not to assert that the Cultural Revolution reversed course solely because of the Soviet threat. The major reasons were internal: popular disorders, production declines, and political disarray. For this period, see Guillermaz, Jacques, The Chinese Communist Party in Power, 1949–1976 (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1976), pp. 359–470Google Scholar; Karnow, Stanley, Mao and China (New York: Viking, 1972)Google Scholar; Robinson, Thomas W. (ed.), The Cultural Revolution in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971)Google Scholar; and Domes, Jürgen, China After the Cultural Revolution: Politics Between Two Party Congresses (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977).Google Scholar

17. These events may be followed in Kissinger, Henry, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), pp. 163–94 and 684–787Google Scholar; Sutter, Roben G., China-Watch: Sino-American Reconciliation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979)Google Scholar, Hsiao, Gene T. (ed.), Sino-American Détente and Its Policy Implications (New York: Praeger, 1974)Google Scholar; Hinten, Harold E., Three and a Half Powers: The New Balance in Asia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), pp. 125–48 and 184–208Google Scholar; Barnds, William P. (ed.), China and America: The Search for a New Relationship (New York: New York University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Barnett, A. Doak, China and the Major Powers in East Asia (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1977), pp. 153–252Google Scholar; and Hellmann, Donald C. (ed.), China and Japan: A New Balance of Power (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1976), pp. 159–296.Google Scholar

18. Chinese military redeployments can be traced in The Military Balance (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, yearly). Generally, after initial confusion in 1969 and an attempt to reposition main force units withdrawn from the north-east for Cultural Revolution duties, the main effort went into upgrading equipment, constructing defence fortifications, training the militia, and putting soldiers back into line units. Needless to say, this took much time and effort – particularly in view of the aftermath of the Lin Biao affair and the destructive effects of the Cultural Revolution (still continuing in the early 1970s). The ups and downs of the militia, and its relation to the people's war strategy, are ably treated in Roberts, Thomas C., Chinese Military Modernization and the Doctrine of People's War (Washington, D.C.: National Defence University Research Directorate, 1981 draft)Google Scholar. Civil defence and the tunnel diggings campaign is poorly studied. Many foreigners have been taken on tours of the complex in Peking and other cities. The Chinese have published a civil defence manual, translated as Chinese Civil Defence (Springfield, Va.: National Technical Information Service, 1977).Google Scholar

19. The controversy within the PLA and between army and Party over what strategy to adopt against The Soviet Union took the form of debate between advocates of “luring deep” and those favouring meeting the Russians “at the gates” or beyond. This controversy, central to the form which people's war would take, is well covered in Nelson, , The Chinese Military SystemGoogle Scholar and Roberts, , Chinese Military Modernization and the Doctrine of People's WarGoogle Scholar. All rounds had been won, down to 1981, by favouring the traditional luring deep strategy. Until China procures a sufficient quantity of modern weaponry to confront the Russians successfully at the border, it is unlikely to be otherwise.

20. Jammes, , “The Chinese defence burden,” op. cit. note 1Google Scholar. The budget declined for several reasons:, lessening costs of Cultural Revolution administration as the army returned to the barracks; lower procurement costs attendant upon the realization that Chinese equipment was obsolete; confusion hi Party-army relations following the Lin Biao incident; and a decision to put more funds into research and development of strategic systems.

21. Political developments in the 1972–76 “gang of four” period may be followed in the Asian Survey yearly review articles, January; the current history yearly review articles, September; and the Far Eastern Economic Review writings of Leo Goodstadt. See, also Michael, Franz, “China after the Cultural Revolution: the unresolved succession crisis,” Orbis, Summer 1973, pp. 315–33Google Scholar; Oksenberg, Michael and Goldstein, Steven, “The Chinese political spectrum,” Problems of Communism, 03–04, 1974, pp. 1–13Google Scholar; Rice, Edward E., “The campaign to criticize Lin Piao and Confucius,” Pacific Community, 10 1974, pp. 94–106Google Scholar; Harding, Harry, “Political trends' in China since the cultural revolution,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 07 1972, pp. 67–77Google Scholar; Lieberthal, Kenneth, “China in 1975: the internal political scene,” Problems of Communism, 05–06 1975, pp. 1–11Google Scholar; Chang, Parris, “Mao's last stand?” Problems of Communism, 07–08 1976,. pp. 1–17Google Scholar; and Chang, Parris, “The passing of the Maoist era,” Asian Survey, 11 1976, pp. 997–1011.Google Scholar

For studies of the military during this period, see: Chang, Parris, “China's military,” Current History, 09 1974, pp. 101–105Google Scholaret seq.; Chang, Parris, “The changing pattern of military participation in Chinese politics,” Orbis, Fall 1972, pp. 780–802Google Scholar; Joffe, Ellis, “The Chinese Army after the cultural revolution: the effects of intervention,” The China Quarterly. 06–09 1973, pp. 450–77Google Scholar; Young-fa, Chin, “The impact of the Lin Piao affair on the People's Liberation Army,” in Chan, Lien (ed.), Proceedings of the Third Sino-American Conference on Mainland China (Taipei: Institute of International Relations, 1974), pp. 372–404Google Scholar; Domes, Jürgen, “The relationship between party, army, and government in Communist China,” in Proceedings of the Fifth Sino-American Conference on Mainland China (Taipei: Institute of International Relations, 1976), pp. 183–211Google Scholar; and Liu, Leo Y., “The relationship between the army and the party in China during the transitional period from 1967–1976,” Asian Studies, 12 1976, pp. 56–81.Google Scholar

22. En-lai, Chou, “Report on the work of the Government,” Peking Review, 24 01 1975, pp. 21–25.Google Scholar

23. Domes, Jürgen, “The ‘gang of four’ and Hua Kuo-feng: an analysis of political events in 1975–76,” The China Quarterly, 09 1977, pp. 473–97Google Scholar; Moody, Peter R. Jr., “The fall of the ‘gang of four’: background notes on the Chinese counterrevolution,” Asian Survey, 08 1977, pp. 711–24Google Scholar; Liu, Alan P. L., “The ‘gang of four’ and the Chinese People's Liberation Army,” Asian Survey, 09 1979, pp. 817–37Google Scholar; and Harding, Harry Jr., “China after Mao,” Problems of Communism, 03–04 1977, pp. 1–18.Google Scholar

24. Author's conversations with senior PLA officials, Beijing, May 1979.

25. The Directive has not been published openly, but its contents are authoritatively reflected in several Chinese publications. One is: Theoretical Group of the National Defence Scientific and Technological Commission, “Integration of ‘millet plus rifles’ with modernization – criticizing the crimes of the ‘gang of four’ in undermining modernization of national defence,” in FBIS-PRC, 23 January 1978, pp. E1–E6. Deng Xiaoping and Ye Jianying are alleged to have delivered speeches at the Military Affairs Commission Enlarged Meeting, June-July 1975, which led to the Directive, which was thereafter suppressed, allegedly, by the “gang of four” in 1976. See Editorial Depàrtment of the Liberation Army Daily, “A struggle concerning major issues of right and wrong on the military front,” in People's Daily, 30 January, and FBIS-PRC, 31 01 1978, pp. E1–E6Google Scholar. The gist of Teng's speech is in Theoretical Group of the Headquarters of the PLA, “Persevere in grasping the key link in running the army well and speed up the building of our army – criticizing the ‘gang of four's’ crimes in opposing the 1975 Enlarged Meeting of the Military Commission,” Hong Qi (Red Flag), 2 February 1978, pp. 2–11 (in FBIS-PRC, 22 02 1978, pp. E9–E20).Google Scholar

26. The Spey engine deal is symptomatic of the problem of acquiring, replicating, and producing a high volume output of advanced military technology. Negotiations with Rolls-Royce began hi 1972, culminated in a 1975 agreement to sell 50 engines to the Chinese, to help them build an engine plant hi Sian, and to render technical assistance in testing and maintenance. All of this was done, but by the beginning of the 1980s the factory had yet to produce the output anticipated and to remove the “bugs” from the mechanism. Thus, nearly a decade after initial contact, the Chinese had not deployed, in numbers, a native-produced advanced jet fighter. Meanwhile, jet-engine technology hi the west and the Soviet Union progressed, rendering the Spey at least partially obsolete.

27. For an authoritative list of 25 Chinese negotiations on military, and military technology, transfers, 1972–80, see Tow, William T. and Stewart, Douglas T., “China's military turns to the west,” International Affairs, Spring 1981, pp. 286–300.Google Scholar

28. Fraser, , “Military modernization in China,” note 1Google Scholar; International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance (London, yearly 1976–1980)Google Scholar; and Asian Security, 1979, pp. 78–92Google Scholar and 1980, pp. 88–104 (Tokyo: Research Institute for Peace and Security, 1980 and 1981 respectively).

29. With the United States alone, 13 exchanges were conducted between early 1979 and mid-1981.

30. This includes Soviet MiG-23 and SAM-6, obtained from Egypt, American arms transferred from Vietnam before 1976, and Soviet anti-tank weapons captured in the Sino-Vietnamese conflict of early 1979.

31. In early 1980, a large switch of regional PLA commanders and commissars occurred, the first since 1973. Some were assigned to central organs – the Military Commission, the general staff, and advisory groups to those bodies. For details, see “Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation,” The China Quarterly, 06 1980, pp. 381–82Google Scholar. This effort was undoubtedly only an initial effort, as the number of old (age 60 and beyond, e.g. soldiers who joined the army in the Yenan period or before) military leaders still in uniform is still quite large. In 1978, the Party promulgated the “Regulations governing the service of cadres of the People's Liberation Army,” and the Jiefangjun Bao (Liberation Army Daily) published an article, “Regarding the passing-down, helping, and guiding as a cause,” on 7 October 1979. Yet in 1981 full implementation was still lacking.

32. The integration of training and skills with good “moral” (i.e. ideological) qualities has been one of the themes of every Army Day (1 August) speech since 1976. The PLA newspaper, Jiefangjun Bao, constantly carries articles on military model units or persons (for example, “Sixth hard bone company – model of unity of politics and training,” in the 4 March 1977 issue). For a summary of these efforts, see Joffe, Ellis and Segal, Gerald, “The Chinese army and professionalism,” Problems of Communism, 11–12 1978, pp. 1–19.Google Scholar

33. Relevant sections, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Military Posture, 1977–81 (Washington: Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1977–1981)Google Scholar; Chung-ming, Li, “Training reforms in the Chinese Communist Air Force,” Issues and Studies, 11 1980, pp. 54–60.Google Scholar

34. National Foreign Assessment Centre, Chinese Defence Spending, 1965–1979 (Springfield, Va.: National Technical Information Centre, 1980)Google Scholar; Xiangqian, Xu, “Strive to achieve modernization in national defence – in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China,” Red Flag, 10 1979, pp. 28–33.Google Scholar

35. Beijing Review, 8, 15, 22 and 29 09 1980Google Scholar, reporting on the Third Session of the Fifth National People's Congress. Officially stated “expenditures on national defence” for 1980 declined from 22·24 billion yuan in 1979 to 19·33 billion, were scheduled to rise in 1981 to 20·17 billion, but were cut again in 1981 (Beijing Review, 2 03 1981, p. 6).Google Scholar

36. Theoretical Group of the National Defence Industry Office, “The strategic policy on strengthening defence construction – on studying Chairman Mao's dissertation on the relationship between economic construction and defence construction,” Guangming Ribao, 20 January 1977 in FBIS-PRC 31 January 1977, pp. E1–E5; Theoretical Group of the Academy of Military Science, “Speed up the revolutionization and modernization of our army, build a powerful national defence army,” Red Flag, 08 1977, pp. 31–35.Google Scholar

37. Roberts, op. cit.; note 18, Chaps. III and IV, cites many Chinese sources from 1973 to 1980, definitively documenting that the “luring deep” strategy was constantly under attack by Army commanders. To this writing, however, it has not been replaced and – in the writer's opinion – cannot safely be modified until the PLA is capable of defending its Soviet borders at or near the boundary. That in turn depends on the pace of Chinese military modernization, Soviet counter-measures, and the degree of American military support for China.

38. Hua's status was in doubt from at least tbe Party's Third Plenum, December 1978, and took an unambiguously downward course at the Fifth Plenum in February 1980. He increasingly attempted, to save his position by appealing to those elements in the army, possibly led by Ye Jianying, who opposed the trend away from Maoist orthodoxy, favoured more emphasis on military modernization, and disliked the penetration of western influence. Hua spent increasingly lengthy periods with the military and made military fora the occasions for his more important utterances. It did him no good: at the December 1980 Party Work Conference he was forced to tender his resignation, which was accepted at the Party's Sixth Plenum in June 1981.

39. The students were angry that the military still occupied student dormitories at the People's University in Peking. Cultural Revolution-generated grievances against the army came into the open in 1980 once the Cultural Revolution, in which the army played a large part, was clearly rejected. See the People's Daily editorial of 23 December 1980. The army's response was lukewarm – knowing it was vulnerable to criticism – and the Party itself was divided as to how to treat the. issue. On the one hand, the Deng Xiaoping-led modernizers needed military support for their programme, however it short-changed the PLA in the immediate sense. On the other hand, the military represented the most powerful opposition to Teng's programme and dragged their feet whenever possible – a good example being the army rectification campaign of late 1980.

40. The 23 December 1980 People's Daily editorial said: “Various…PLA units must try to understand how to help in handling army-government and army-civilian problems instead of complaining.…” Apparently the former defence minister, Ye Jianying, and the former Gwangzhou military region commander, Xu Shiyou (both Politburo members and the latter a Cultural Revolution beneficiary) were among those who voiced complaints.

41. Chen Xilain was removed from his position as Peking military region commander and from the Politburo and the State Council. He retained his seat on the military commission. Xu Shiyou, having previously been exiled to the Urumchi Military Region, was removed from that post and returned, apparently in disgust, to Nanking. He was, however, kept as a member of the Polioburo and the Military Commission.

A struggle ensued in late 1980–early 1981 over the defence ministership, apparently connected with the dismissal of Hua Guofeng as Party Chairman and with general military restiveness with the Deng Xiaoping modernization programme as it affected the PLA. The military lost that battle and Geng Biao was brought in to ride hard on. them. Concurrently, all of the four million member army were made to swear renewed fidelity to the Party. For the “Soldier's Oath,” see FBIS-PRC, 3 03 1981, pp. L3–L4.Google Scholar

42. The first such article appeared in Guangming Ribao on 8 July 1980. Qing Dynasty officials during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 were judged correct hi resisting those opposed to rapid modernization and who favoured territorial compromises with Japan. A Red Flag article on 1 January 1981 approved of Lenin's 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany on the grounds that it provided time for the new government to become strong. These two articles obviously lined up on different sides of the modernization/outright-resistance-to-the-Soviet Union line adopted by the Deng Xiaoping leadership. The People's Daily on 8 January published an article approving Zhou Enlai's proposal during the 1927 Northern Expedition to strike eastward against Chiang Kai-shek (read: Taiwan) rather than further northward against the warlords (read: The Soviet Union).

43. Aside from the Guangming Ribao article mentioned immediately above, these include a series of ostensible attacks against Qi Benyu, an ousted Cultural Revolutionary associate of Mao and (allegedly) of Biao, Lin, in Lishi Yanjiu, 12 1979Google Scholar: Guangming Ribao, 8 01 1980Google Scholar, Red Flag, 07 1980Google Scholar; and People's daily, 10 04, 29 06 1980, and 17 01 1981.Google Scholar

44. 4, 20 February 1981, entitled, respectively, “Recollections and inheritance – in memory of Comrade Wang Jiaxiang,” and “A tentative analysis of the ‘debate (in the 1870s) on coastal defence versus land border defence.’”

45. To conduct a massive ground attack against China and seek permanently to occupy large amounts of territory would require more than the 51 divisions now deployed east of Lake Baikal. Moreover, they would all have to be brought up to full strength (e.g. Category I), whereas most are now in Categories II and III. Finally, Soviet Asian strategy has been basically defensive ever since 1969 when the massive Soviet military build-up moved into high gear. A multiplicity of arguments support this (which is not only Soviet assertion but the author's conclusion as well): the Chinese nuclear deterrent; Soviet troubles elsewhere; the efficacy of the Sino-American connection; general Soviet Asian policy; the military -propensities of the Soviet Union over 60 years; the vastly unfavourable world political configuration subsequent to Soviet attack; and the enormous cost to the Soviet economy of such a venture.

46. See Deitchman, Seymour J., New Technology and Military Power: General Purpose Military Forces for the 1980s and Beyond (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1979)Google Scholar, for evidence of this trend toward rapidly rising costs.

47. That is what China did, to its advantage, in the fall of 1962 against India. It did not do so against Vietnam in early 1979, probably could not do so against India now, and certainly could not face the Soviet Union on a modern battlefield.

48. The entire history of the modern state system demonstrates the veracity of the linked nature of the interest and power. Every new and powerful actor – from France in 1789 through the United States and the Soviet Union in the mid-20th century – has expanded its scope and geographic extent of interest as its national power has increased through modernization. It is, to be sure, relative, not absolute, power that counts, so that Great Britain today finds its relative power has declined, thus leading it to contract its interests.

49. It is true that most analyses by western economists in the early 1980s stress the problems faced by China and thus come to pessimistic conclusions. The Chinese themselves seem to agree with such an analysis. But they and non-Chinese observers may be surprised. While there are many uncertainties in China's future, the most important being the political climate, the required mixture of elements for high growth is present. These include: reasonable political harmony at the top of the Party; appropriate ordering of the four modernizations; absence of large-scale, ideologically-based social disorders and political campaigns of the Cultural Revolution variety; existence of a solid economic base in both industry and agriculture, and a well-developed infrastructure – social, economic, and political; renewed stress on education, economic incentives, and labour discipline; a mixture of private and public ownership and management; and probably sufficiency (if not plentitude) of food, natural resources, and energy.

50. Meade, Edward Earle (ed.7, Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Howard, Michael (ed.), The Theory and Practice of War (New York: Praeger, 1966)Google Scholar; Weigley, Russell F., The American Way of War (South Bend: Indiana University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; and Sokolovskiy, Marshal V. D., Soviet Military Strategy, 3rd ed. (ed. Fast Scott, Harriet, New York: Crane, Russak, 1975).Google Scholar

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52. Arms controllers and students of arms races as causes of war tend generally to this view. See, for instance, Allison, Graham and Morris, Frederic, “Armaments and arms control: explaining the determinants of military weapons,” Daedalus, Summer 1975, pp. 122–26Google Scholar; and Richardson, Lewis F., Arms and Insecurity (Pittsburgh: The Boxwood Press, 1960)Google Scholar. Theorists of nuclear deterrence also move in this direction, as for instance Kahn, Herman, On Thermo-Nuclear War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961)Google Scholar. See also International Institute for Strategic Studies, New Conventional Weapons and East-West Security: Parts I–II (London: IISS, Adelphi Papers 144 and 145, Spring 1978).Google Scholar

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54. This conclusion was more than hinted at by senior Chinese military officers at the Chinese Military Academy, 2 May 1979. Conversations with the author. The Chinese are well aware, for instance, of the important role played by precision-guided munitions in the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, of the American use of such weaponry in the latter stages of the Vietnam War, and the utility to which they were put by the Vietnamese against China in early 1979.