China military risks trampling on policy toes with exercises

People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers have loudly warned that national interests are threatened by neighbors' rival claims in the South China Sea, and decried planned U.S.-South Korean drills in the Yellow Sea, between Korea and China

“A country needs respect, and a military also needs respect,” wrote Major General Luo Yuan in the PLA's paper.

Stressing the point, the PLA navy will hold artillery exercises on the Yellow Sea from Wednesday.

Beneath that public assertiveness, lie questions about evolving Chinese civil-military relations, a murky area with broader implications for foreign policy, especially in Asia.

The Chinese military remains firmly subordinated to the ruling Communist Party, but it has grown less finely meshed with civilian leaders, and that matters for coordinating and communicating policy, especially under pressure.

“Civil-military relations in China are very different from the old days. There used to be a symbiosis. Now they are more distinct spheres,” said Nan Li, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College on Rhode Island, who specializes in the PLA.

“Inter-agency coordination is a big problem,” he said.

With China exploring how to use its fast-expanding military, such internal uncertainties could have consequences in the region, where the U.S. keeps a big military presence.

“It clearly has tremendous implications for real policy choices both in Beijing and abroad,” David Finkelstein, an expert on the Chinese military at CNA, an institute in Virginia that studies security issues, said of PLA-civilian ties.

“China's global security interests have expanded faster than the capacity of its traditional bureaucratic institutions to handle them,” he said.

Lobbying or wrong-footing among civil and military players could make Chinese policy-making even less like a tightly-rehearsed orchestra, and more like a band with members competing for attention, risking miscues or confusion.

One PLA strategist recently warned as much.

“With no concrete leadership for national security, when many departments become involved, coordination is difficult, responses tend to be tardy, counter-measures lack focus, and constantly problems emerge in certain links among the institutions dealing with matters,” the strategist, retired Rear Admiral Yang Yi, wrote in a study published late last year.

Demanding Respect

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