The People's Republic of China has more than 20
nuclear warheads capable of hitting the United States today, making
this country a major concern for many Americans. Furthermore,
Chinese military officers have made veiled threats against the
United States if America were to intervene should China use
military force against Taiwan. Beijing's threats are indeed
serious, especially in light of the fact that its military, the
People's Liberation Army (PLA), is becoming more powerful, buying
new weapons in order to modernize and create a more effective armed
force.
Yet
amid all the talk of China's military purchases and of the PLA's
threat to Taiwan, there has been little discussion of the
volatility of China's internal security and the effect it has on
China's military. While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the
PLA appear to be unassailable monoliths, the reality is that both
face many internal problems that could explode.
Right now, while the economy is stable, so
is the population of China. But masses of disgruntled workers or
farmers could quickly become volatile. In 1989, for instance,
democracy protests in Tiananmen Square rapidly turned violent. Television cameras
fixed observers' eyes on the involvement of students in the
uprising, but there were plenty of workers out there, too,
including many who had been encouraged to be there by Communist
Party organizations.
Recent examples of the internal military
and security stresses faced by the Chinese Communist Party abound.
In February, some 20,000 mine workers faced down the People's
Liberation Army to protest job losses, but the PLA acted
to stabilize the situation. Some time later, a similar incident
took place in Liaoning, where factory workers protested and stood
up to the PLA. These incidents have the potential to grow in size
and seriousness, threatening the grip of the CCP.
Until recently, Beijing was always certain
of the military's support in quashing internal unrest. Today,
however, domestic conditions have put a great deal of stress upon
the military, making its responses to unrest less predictable. If
Beijing pursues its nationalist agenda and takes action against
Taiwan, it may discover that the PLA, despite its modernization
efforts, is not up to the task. Its failure would further undermine
the legitimacy of the Communist Party leadership and the stature of
the PLA as a force of repression.
The
potential for civil unrest is large. Imagine the equivalent of two
or three divisions of infantry, each 10,000 men strong with tank
and artillery support, in rebellion in each of China's major cities
because they are dissatisfied with government policies. Add to that
some rebellious mobs forming from the 100 million unemployed people
concentrated in major industrial areas who are dissatisfied with
the government and have basic military training. Factor in several
hundred million reasonably well-off but volatile peasants on farms
who are sick and tired of being gouged by illegal taxes on land,
crops, and even machinery by Communist Party cadre unchecked by a
legal system. This vision haunts the leaders of the Chinese
Communist Party when they gather in their secret meetings to decide
policy at party headquarters in Zhongnanhai or at their annual
August summer retreat at the seashore in Beidaihe.
In
sum, all is not well in the Middle Kingdom. The communist dynasty,
however, seems but dimly aware of its problems because of its
isolation and elitism. It has been surprised by events in China,
whether it was the Falungong practitioners, the protesting miners
and farmers, or the effects of the Internet.
The
Chinese leadership faces many challenges, and reforming the
Communist Party and the socialist economy will not solve them all.
Serious legal and structural reform of the government is required,
and a stable growing economy is the necessary condition for such
reforms to be carried out. The "first principles" of Leninism to
which the Communist Party leaders are dedicated--such as democratic
centralism, leadership by a single "vanguard party," and
socialism--limit their ability and desire to carry out the
necessary and fundamental reforms.
To
ensure his regime's stability, Jiang Zemin, Chinese President,
Communist Party General Secretary, and PLA Central Military
Commission Chairman, will most likely take a cautious course both
in reform and in threatening Taiwan. At the same time, the military
will pressure him to be more aggressive internationally and to
emphasize nationalism domestically. These decisions,
however, will mean that the economic reforms that the United States
would like to see take place in China will proceed slowly.
CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS
Communist Party leaders are sitting on a
demographic time bomb. That is, the proportion of the elderly
population dependent on working adults to support them will have
increased from 11 percent in 1990 to 22 percent in 2025. This places a heavy
burden on the populace and will affect the economy, but it will be
even more serious if the government tries to shift the burden of
support to families.
This
trend will also have a profound effect on the military. The
demographics of an aging population leave a smaller manpower pool
available for military service, a problem exacerbated by the
one-child policy. Moreover, if the government is not providing the
expected social and health safety net for the elderly, leaving the
burden on families in the older Confucian tradition decreases the
incentive for young persons, particularly males, to go into the
military. After all, military pay is barely sufficient for
sustaining the soldier, let alone a family, and military service
takes the child away from the family. Finally, even those who end
up in the military will have a strong incentive to engage in
corruption to supplement low pay and to take care of family
elders.
A MOBILE LABOR MARKET AND PROBLEMS WITH
MILITARY RETENTION
Demographic changes will affect not only
the military and the social network, but also the labor market. The
World Bank projects that by 2020, the typical Chinese worker will
not be a self-employed farmer or working family land, but instead
will be some form of wage worker in the industrial or service
sector. These changes will
require a flexible labor market and rural-urban migration, as well
as improved education, as parts of China transition to a
knowledge-based economy. Changes in the labor market are already
occurring as a result of domestic and external forces in China,
even in the absence of legal and economic incentives, which
accounts for the so-called floating population of workers.
Increased labor mobility and educational
attainment will limit the communist government's ability to control
people as completely as it had in past years, and it will increase
the chances that dissenting groups can organize against the
Communist Party. Even the most positive projections of labor
mobility still predict strong negative effects on internal security
and China's military.
To
be sure, the increased labor mobility is presenting problems for
the military. Low salaries in the
military compared with those in the private sector, marketable
skills taught by the military, and conscription quotas are standing
difficulties for the PLA in terms of retaining soldiers. The
military's meager pay discourages Chinese citizens from enlisting
voluntarily: Junior soldiers make as little as 120 Yuan ($15) a
year, and few young soldiers make more than 300 Yuan ($36) a year.
By contrast, the average urban worker in the "floating labor"
market may earn this salary in one month, enabling him to send
money home and to return home for several months a year.
Once
in the People's Liberation Army, there is little incentive to stay;
soldiers often learn skills that are transferable to civilian jobs,
where the pay is better, and many soldiers are given the chance to
move to another area of China. When they are released from active
duty, some veterans often choose to stay in the new location to
take advantage of better economic opportunities and to dwell among
the new friends they have made.
Conscription in the People's Liberation
Army is still run on a quota system; quotas are managed by local
(county or municipality) People's Armed Departments. Because of the
insufficient pay, there is little incentive for people with
families that might require their financial help or labor to
enlist. The "floating population" of labor primarily is made up of
workers from small farms, and family members
that leave the family farm often migrate to the urban labor market
and thus avoid military service. This places great stress on the
populace, the Communist Party, and the government, which still must
somehow make up the required conscription quota for each
locality.
The Military's Loss of Luster
Thirty years ago, the average peasant family encouraged its
sons and daughters to enter military service when conscripted. At
that time, however, families did not own the land they tilled or
the businesses in which they worked. The "iron rice bowl" of the
communal system was still providing food, medical care, and some
form of social security, so children were not required to care for
their parents. In addition, because of the pervasive influence of
the Communist Party, putting a child into the military was a good
thing to do politically.
In
the past 30 years, however, China's "self-defense" attack on
Vietnam in 1979, market reforms, and loss of governmental
legitimacy have undermined the appeal of military service. The
People's Liberation Army literally "wasted" perhaps 50,000 lives in
attacking Vietnam 20 years ago. That war was a clear reminder for
fathers and mothers that military service in China can be a deadly
option. Meanwhile, the
economy improved after the market-oriented reforms were introduced.
With a more flexible labor market and more wealth available in the
private sector, sending a son or daughter into military service
became a poor economic choice as well.
Then, 11 years ago, on June 4, 1989, the
PLA and the People's Armed Police (PAP) killed and injured
thousands of people during democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen
Square and other Chinese cities. Since then, entering the PLA has
become a distasteful option. Furthermore, as the Communist Party
has lost its mantle of legitimacy in the eyes of the Chinese
people, any work for the party or state organs of power has
increasingly become a meaningless political choice.
A
Labor Force with Military Skills
The military's problems with retention and loss of legitimacy
have consequences beyond the immediate impact on its active forces.
The demobilized soldiers leave the PLA with military skills and
training. For Beijing, this means that there are citizens
throughout China who have been trained to apply violence in an
organized way--and perhaps could use these skills against the
government.
For
example, the level of military training within the general working
populace was evident during the pro-democracy demonstrations
surrounding the Tiananmen Square buildup in May and June 1989.
Workers and students had established and manned roadblocks. At
these roadblocks, organized groups of people were ready to fight
the PLA troops with Molotov cocktails and to break the tracks of
the PLA's tanks and armored personnel carriers. Even in the
agricultural villages in Beijing's surrounding counties, organized
groups of peasants blocked the military's access to the cities and
prepared to do battle. The protesting workers in Beijing almost
uniformly had military training, and the demonstrating farmers
either had seen military service or had militia training. At a
roadblock on the northeast side of Beijing, for example, one of the
young men leading the resistance, holding bottles full of gasoline
stuffed with rags hanging in bags from his shoulders, told
standers-by, "the PLA taught us to conduct `People's War' and we're
going to show them what `People's War' is about."
Such
a "People's War" is the Beijing leadership's greatest fear. The
improved economy and the flexibility in the labor market have
ensured that each city in China has a large group of people who
know how to use violence and manage force in an organized way.
Military Willingness to Act Against the
Populace
Further compounding the problem of organized, well-trained
former soldiers outside of official military bodies is the PLA's
"closeness" to the Chinese people. In particular, the PLA includes
a paramilitary internal security force called the People's Armed
Police, whose loyalty may
not lie with the CCP in case of internal unrest. The PAP's ties to
local communities make its members less willing to fight and to use
force against protesters.
Conscription for the PAP is run much as it
is for the PLA, by quotas for townships and counties. Service in
the PAP, however, is generally far more comfortable, interesting,
and rewarding than PLA service. Basic military training for both
the PLA and the PAP is tough, but after training, most PAP troops
are stationed in places where their duties take them off the
barracks area. They are able to mingle with locals and often
develop close personal relationships with men and women in the
vicinity of their garrisons. These relationships often lead to
marriage. In contrast, the PLA units remain far more cloistered and
isolated from local citizens. PLA troops may have to wait a full
year before getting a real break in town.
In
1989, when the Tiananmen uprising broke out, the PAP units were
perhaps the least effective groups in responding to and managing
widespread unrest. PAP units generally avoided direct clashes with
protesters, did little to assist the PLA's forced entry into
Beijing, and in my observation were reluctant to use force against
the populace. Accordingly, the PLA was brought in to subdue
dissent. The PAP troops would probably be equally ineffective now
if faced with similar decisions in response to widespread popular
unrest. They simply could
not be relied upon to control mobs of their neighbors.
To
counter this problem, the Communist Party's Central Military
Commission has taken whole divisions of the PLA and converted them
to People's Armed Police. Some were moved into cities to replace or
augment other PAP units, but most of these new PAP units remain in
their old, isolated PLA barracks in rural areas. The soldiers
rarely get out and have little contact with the populace against
which they are targeted. During the last reduction in force in the
PLA, in 1995-1996, many PLA units were converted to PAP units
rather than releasing the soldiers into the labor market.
Today, as the PLA faces another reduction
in force, I suspect that a good percentage of the soldiers will be
transferred from the PLA to the PAP. Thus, the Communist Party's
leadership hopes that, if it once again becomes necessary to
suppress large segments of the population, it can depend on the
new, isolated PAP units.
But
what would really happen if it again became necessary to suppress
large segments of the population? Think of what the People's Armed
Police garrisoned in rural areas might face in a general crisis:
Not only mobs of workers with some form of military training would
likely oppose them, but so too might other urban PAP units who
sided with their protesting neighbors. In the countryside, the PAP
units garrisoned outside cities may have to face organized farmers,
as the PLA did in 1989.
This
is a volatile and unstable mixture. Other governments have fallen
when faced with similar circumstances--take, for instance, Romania
in 1989. This mixture portends that the People's Liberation Army
will again be the force of last resort in case of widespread civil
unrest, as it was in 1989.
THE MILITARY AND STATE-OWNED
ENTERPRISES
A
strong military presence inside China's 300,000 state-owned
enterprises (SOEs) is another concern. The SOEs are a serious
financial burden on the economy of China. These outmoded industries
employ between 100 million and 120 million people but are operating
at a loss of about 1 percent of China's gross domestic product
(GDP) each year. Westerners often
see examples of such weak industries in coastal or eastern China,
but this problem is even more serious in the old "third line"
defense industrial base in central China.
The
problem of unemployment and bankruptcy in state-owned enterprises
is critical and potentially explosive. Some SOEs still pay
industrial workers in kind for their work, expecting the workers to
sell the products on the open market. Others pay some workers only
part of what they are owed, while still other SOEs do not pay
workers at all. These enterprises allow their workers to keep their
housing on the enterprise grounds but tell them to look for other
jobs. Worst of all, some tell workers to dip into their savings and
purchase shares or bonds in the industries to help keep them afloat
or to pay back a non-performing bank loan.
At
the same time, the military has a strong presence in the SOEs. The
more than 1 million soldiers and officers in reserve forces of the
PLA work primarily in state- or collectively owned enterprises. For
example, Baoshan Iron and Steel in Shanghai has an infantry
division-sized unit. In Beijing, Capital Iron and Steel (Shougang)
has a division-sized unit with vehicles, tanks, and artillery. This
division, about 10,000 strong, was pressed into service against the
populace to support the PLA during the Tiananmen Square crisis. Its
vehicles were burned in the middle of the road a few miles from the
factory; no one yet knows whether the soldiers did it or members of
the popular resistance.
All
over China, the major SOEs have military reserve units embedded in
them. In the city of Mianyang and throughout the Mianyang area in
Sichuan Province, many of the reserve units are in old
nuclear-related industries. In Manchuria, in the city of
Mudanjiang, not far from the North Korean border, a major
state-owned tire factory houses a reserve unit.
Within these unprofitable SOEs, the
potential for labor unrest is high. If several military divisions
within the SOEs were to turn against the government in protest over
their poor economic conditions, it would be a huge crisis for the
CCP. This scenario undoubtedly frightens China's central leadership
and is a strong incentive for them to keep funds flowing into the
state-owned enterprises.
BROAD DISCONTENT
Today, millions work in China's
increasingly vibrant private sector. In 1995, there were 350,000
private companies in China and 11 million sole proprietorships. In
1998, the gross value of industrial output of China's private
sector was $250 billion. As a result, the Chinese people are less
and less committed to communism, the Chinese Communist Party, and
its leadership.
While economic reforms have created more
choices for the Chinese people, they have also led to job
dislocation in the state-owned business sector. Furthermore,
widespread corruption and unemployment have triggered pervasive
discontent. According to the South China Morning Post
(SCMP), in 1999 "there were more than 2,000 cases of farmers
staging riots and other violent demonstrations against rural
authorities." It was not a
religious group like Falungong seeking peaceful self-expression
that caused these demonstrations, but a strong dissatisfaction over
excessive taxation and corruption among government officials and
Communist Party cadres.
In
his SCMP article on the miners' demonstrations in February,
Willy Wo-Lap Lam characterized the problem as "a time bomb" and
estimated that rural unemployed labor could be as high as 200
million. According to the article, local governments require
farmers to pay levies and contribute to road building,
infrastructure projects, waterworks, schools, and social welfare.
Peasants are also required to subsidize the local militia and
police. The widespread corruption and abuses by party officials
have decreased the legitimacy of both the CCP and the PLA.
Corruption is widespread within the
military. Since conscription requirements for local areas are
allocated by quota and certain forms of military service provide
more opportunities than others, the system lends itself to
increasing corruption in an already corrupt system. My own
experience, based on conversations with PAP soldiers and officers,
is that the families of young men and women are bribing local
officials in the People's Armed Departments at the time of
conscription so that their children will be assigned to the PAP
instead of the PLA.
Those who do opt to go into the PLA may
give a "little gift" in order to receive an assignment to the Air
Force or Navy, where more marketable high-tech civilian skills can
be learned. This level of corruption indicates that the government
and its military have lost their traditional place of respect and
influence in society. It also means that an ethic of service to the
nation or state, or even the Communist Party, is not driving the
average soldier in the People's Liberation Army or the People's
Armed Police.
CONCLUSION
The
national, provincial, and local governments of the People's
Republic of China are failing to fulfill the basic functions that
governments generally manage--education, maintenance of order, and
maintenance of an economic and transportation infrastructure. This
failure to meet the core responsibilities of government is a major
factor feeding the widespread civic unrest, and it has undermined
the legitimacy of the Communist Party as well as of the People's
Liberation Army.
Combined with demographic trends, a mobile
labor market, military veterans in the private sector, potential
insubordination within the PAP, economic failures within the
state-owned enterprises, and broad discontent with economic
conditions and state corruption, the Chinese leadership could face
extensive insurrection. In the case of such unrest, the CCP does
not really know if the military will act resolutely to put down
protests.
In
the past, the CCP has always been able to call on the People's
Liberation Army to suppress unrest. And in the near term, it
probably still can count on the PLA. The PLA, however, is
increasingly less committed to the Communist Party leadership, and
the Peoples Armed Police and reserve units are becoming
increasingly less reliable as well.
How
would the PLA fare if it faced parts of the PAP and its own reserve
divisions? Would the generals and the soldiers put down
insurrections with conviction or with hesitation? In a crisis,
would there be a general breakdown of government? This is the
dilemma China's communist leaders face today, and economic
liberalization is only increasing the stress. By clinging to their
Marxist-Leninist ideology, China's leaders are further undermining
the communist government's legitimacy. Beijing is trying to ride
the tiger of liberalization but will fail if it refuses to abandon
its discredited ideology. How it handles this tiger will determine
how well it manages its transition to a market-based economy and to
a society that respects human rights and the rule of law.
Dr. Larry M.
Wortzel, is Director of the Asian Studies Center at The
Heritage Foundation. He served as the Assistant Army Attaché
in China during the Tiananmen massacre and in 1995 returned to
China as the Army Attaché. He also has served on the
international security policy staff of the Office of the Secretary
of Defense. Before joining Heritage, Colonel Wortzel was Director
of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College in
Carlisle, Pennsylvania.