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“People's War under Modern Conidtions”: Wishful Thinking, National Suicide, or Effective Deterrent?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Harlan W. Jencks
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Extract

For millennia China's enemies have come chiefly out of northern and central Asia. In the 1980s, after a historically anomalous century during which most of her enemies came from the sea, China's defences once again are orientated north and west. The military threat of the 1980s is more complex than that posed by the barbarian nomads of old. The Soviet armed forces can launch land-air battles simultaneously all along the 10,000-kilometre Sino-Soviet border. Moreover, time and space factors which long shielded the interior of China provide little protection in the missile age.

Type
Research Note
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 98 , June 1984 , pp. 305 - 319
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1984

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References

1. Soviet territory is herein taken to include the satellite state of Mongolia. On Soviet forces in Asia see especially Erickson, John, “The Soviet strategic emplacement in Asia,” Asian Affairs (02 1981)Google Scholar; and Dibb, Paul, “Soviet capabilities, interests, and strategies in East Asia in the 1980s,” Survival, Vol. 24, No. 4 (07–08 1982), pp. 155–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Xiangqian, Xu, “Strive to achieve modernization in national defence,” Hongqi (Red Flag), No. 10 (10 1979), pp. 28–33Google Scholar; trans, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report: China (cited hereafter as FBIS), 79–203, p. L14.

3. Godwin, Paul H. B., “China defense modernization: of tortoise shells and tigers' tails,” Air University Review, Vol. 32, No. 7 (11–12 1981), pp. 2–19Google Scholar.

4. On the 1979 war, see Jencks, Harlan W., “China's ‘punitive war’ on Vietnam: a military assessment,” Asian Survey, Vol. 19, No. 8 (08 1979), pp. 801–815CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. For a further discussion of the threat, see Segal, Gerald, The Soviet “Threat” at China's Gates (London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1983. Conflict Studies No. 143), pp. 4–5Google Scholar.

6. Quoted in China Daily, 4 February 1982, p. 1.

7. I am grateful to Harvey Nelsen for some of these figures, which he obtained from a high State Department source. Also see the testimony and comments by Patton, Captain James M., USN, in The Implications of US-China Military Cooperation, a workshop sponsored by the committee on Foreign Relations of the US Senate and the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 01 1982), pp. 53 and 90–91Google Scholar (this volume is cited hereafter as Implications). Also see Dibb, pp. 155,158–62; Huaze, Shao, “A reliable guarantee of socialist construction,” Hongqi, No. 21 (11 1982), pp. 19–23Google Scholar; trans, in FBIS 82–224, p. K20; and “Soviet strategy for world domination,” Beijing Review 28 January 1980.

8. The following draws heavily from Daniel, Donald C. and Jencks, Harlan W., ”Soviet military confrontation with China: options for the USSR, the PRC, and the USA,” Conflict Vol. 5, No. 1 (1983), pp. 57–87Google Scholar; Also see “The military dimension,” in Stuart, Douglas T. and Tow, William T. (eds.), China, the Soviet Union, and the West (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1982), pp. 99–154Google Scholar.

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12. Huaze, Shao, “A reliable guarantee of socialist construction,” p. K23Google Scholar.

13. Ibid. p. K21; Guan Yanzhong; Deputy Chief of Staff Zhang Zhen interviewed in Xinhua (New China News Agency), 17 January 1982, trans, in FBIS 82–012, p. K11; and Renmin ribao, 28 September 1981, p. 1, trans, in FBIS 81–188, p. K2.

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15. Minbingzhengzhi keben (Militia Political Textbook) (Beijing: PLA General Political Department, 02 1981)Google Scholar. The following quotations are from pp. 35–37. Also see Nie Rongzhen's speech at the National Militia Conference on 4 August 1978, translated by Xinhua, 7 August 1978, in FBIS 78–154, pp. E5–E6.

16. Robinson, Thomas W., “Chinese military modernization in the 1980s,” The China Quarterly, No. 90 (06 1982), pp. 231–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. This is a paraphrase of the definition of “doctrine” given in JCS Pub. 1, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1 06 1979), p. 113Google Scholar.

18. See especially: Romance, Francis J., “Modernization of China's armed forces,” Asian Survey, Vol. 20, No. 3 (03 1980), pp. 298–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Jencks, , Muskets to Missiles, pp. 259–62Google Scholar; Godwin, , “China's defense modernization,” pp. 8–15Google Scholar; and Whitson, William W., The Chinese High Command (New York: Praeger, 1973), pp. 460–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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20. Jijun, Li, “The characteristics and historical position of Mao Zedong's military thought,” Hongqi, No. 14 (16 07 1982), pp. 11–16Google Scholar, trans, in FBIS 82–151, p. K22.

21. Zhong, Fu, “Mao Zedong's military science is forever the Chinese people's treasure,” Hongqi, No. 15 (1 08 1981)Google Scholar, summarized in English by Xinhua, 2 August 1981. The full text of Part III is in Xinhua, 31 July 1981, trans, in FBIS 81–149, p. K19. For short statement on the subject, see Fang, Guo, “The concept of people's war,” Beijing Review, No. 31 (2 08 1982), p. 3Google Scholar.

22. This and the following are drawn from Jencks, , Muskets to Missiles, pp. 259–61Google Scholar.

23. Harris, , “Politics of national security in China,” pp. 64–66Google Scholar. Harris', analysis is confirmed very closely in Minting zhengzhi keben, pp. 18–19 and 35–37Google Scholar.

24. Fang, Guo, “The concept of people's war,” p. 3Google Scholar.

25. Mingbingzhengzhi keben, pp. 18–19.

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27. For example: Xinhua, , 17 01 1982, in FBIS 82–012, pp. K11–K12Google Scholar.

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29. Quoted by Beijing Domestic Service, 9 September 1979, trans, in FBIS 79–176, p. L15

30. Nie Rongzhen's speech, p. E7.

31. Baoshan, Xu, Jiefangjun bao, p. 98Google Scholar.

32. Xinhua, 24 January 1982, trans, in FBIS 82–016, p. K16.

33. Shangkun, Yang (secretary-general of the Party Central Military Commission), in Hongqi, No. 15 (1 08 1982)Google Scholar, cited by Xinhua, 30 July 1982, trans, in FBIS 82–148, p. K10.

34. Huaze, Shao, “A reliable guarantee of socialist construction,” p. K22Google Scholar.

35. On Soviet tactics and operational art, see US Army FM 30—102, Opposing Forces Europe; and Wiener, Friedrich, The Armies of the Warsaw pact Nations, 3rd edit. (English) (Vienna: Karl Ueberreuter Publishers, 1981)Google Scholar.

36. Jijun, Li, “The characteristics and historical position of Mao Zedong's military thought,” p. K22Google Scholar. For a somewhat different view of the strategy, see Segal, , The Soviet Threat” at China's Gates, pp. 5–7Google Scholar.

37. Baoshan, Xu, Jiefangjun bao, trans. in China Report, No. 88, p. 99Google Scholar.

38. This discussion draws heavily on Chalmers Johnson's excellent analysis in his Autopsy on People's War (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 46–47Google Scholar.

39. The Soviet Union is not a likely target for the “French-Vietnamese-Algerian tradition of revolutionary warfare.” This form, variously termed “psychomilitary strategy” (Bell), “neo-revolutionary guerrilla warfare” (Pike), or the “third generation of guerrilla warfare” (Johnson, 1968)Google Scholar, is “undertaken not ultimately to obtain a favourable military decision…but rather to unnerve and bring to their knees an imperialist power and its client by shattering their will. Victory here is political” (Johnson, , Autopsy, p. 47)Google Scholar. The Chinese realize that the Soviet press and public opinion are neither as accessible nor as politically decisive as they are in France and the United States. The current inability of the Afghan resistance to make a propaganda dent, either in Soviet public opinion or political resolve, demonstrates the point. See Bell, J. Bowyer, The Myth of the Guerrilla (New York: Knopf, 1971), p. 59Google Scholar; Pike, Douglas, “Guerrilla warfare in Vietnam” in Interdoc Conference, Guerrilla Warfare in Asia (The Hague: Interdoc, 1971), pp. 48–64Google Scholar; and Johnson, Chalmers, “The third generation of guerrilla warfare,” Asian Survey, Vol. 8, No. 6 (06 1968), pp. 435–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40. For an exploration of American options in such a situation, see Daniel and Jencks, “Soviet military confrontation with China.”

41. Godwin, , “China's defense modernization,” p. 12Google Scholar.

42. Xuan, Gong, “Modernization of national defence,” Renmin ribao, 31 05 1978, p. 2Google Scholar, trans, in FBIS 78–110, p. E2.

43. Werner, Roy, in Implications, p. 40Google Scholar.

44. Tzu, Sun, The Art of War, in Griffith, Samuel B. (trans.) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 73Google Scholar.

45. Sloan, John J., in Implications, p. 28Google Scholar.

46. Segal, Gerald and Tow, William T. (eds.), Chinese Defense Issues in the Eighties (New York: Macmillan, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

47. Segal, , The Soviet “Threat” at China's Gates, pp. 3–4Google Scholar.

48. Godwin, , “China's defense modernization,” p. 17Google Scholar.

49. Boylan, Edward S., “The Chinese cultural style of warfare,” Comparative Strategy, Vol. 3, No. 4 (1982), pp. 341–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50. I am grateful for Donald Hellmann's stimulating questions, which prompted the following discussion.