The PLA turns 80 today

Marshal Lin Biao’s photograph (centre) is included in the ongoing exhibition at the military museum in Beijing. Opinion is divided on the implications of this.




Pallavi Aiyar
The Hindu, August 1

China’s army is in the midst of wide-ranging modernisation with the aim of reducing its size while upgrading its technological prowess.

It’s a steamy hot weekday morning in July but, despite the heat and the pressures of work, the museum in western Beijing is teeming with activity. There is an almost carnival-like feel to the scene. Bright umbrellas patterned with the familiar golden arches of McDonalds provide some shelter from the sun. Children run around chattering excitedly, their parents panting after them begging them to be careful.

Through the occasional gaps in the thick mass of humanity, sleek fighter jets, muscular armoured vehicles, and shiny rocket launchers make an oddly jarring appearance. The museum in question is the Junshi Bowuguan or Military Museum and the crush of people is explained by the opening of a new exhibition of Chinese military history to mark the upcoming 80th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the world’s largest military force.

The PLA boasts 2.3 million soldiers, 800,000 reservists, and an armed police numbering 1.5 million. Given the tumultuous 20th century history of China and its neighbouring region, the army has played a key role in determining the course of the country.

The PLA began life as a rag-tag assemblage of fighters relying mainly on guerrilla tactics. It is eulogised in Chinese history textbooks as the force behind the establishment of the communist state in 1949. Several decades later, China’s army is in the process of wide-ranging modernisation with the aim of reducing its size while upgrading its technological prowess.

Defence budget burgeoning

China’s defence budget has thus been burgeoning over the last few years with Beijing announcing a particularly sharp hike of close to 18 per cent in military spending for 2007. The official figure for the military budget in this ongoing fiscal is thus $44.94 billion. However, the United States and Japan both accuse China of understating the true figure. Pentagon reports regularly claim that the real budget is well over $100 billion — when all military spending is accounted for, a number China flatly denies.

For Beijing, managing the rise in its international profile has led to a delicate two-pronged strategy in which it attempts to reassure neighbours of its “peaceful” intentions, even while pressing ahead with modernising the PLA into a force capable of significant power projection. China has thus been upgrading its nuclear arsenal to include more mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles such as the DF-31A and the JL-2 submarine-launched missiles. At the same time, it has been mending fences with a number of neighbours who, given the fraught historical relations, continue to keep a suspicious eye on developments within the PLA.

In order to allay fears and rebut criticisms of the “opaque” nature of its military modernisation, the use of joint military exercises as a diplomatic tool has gained popularity in Beijing. Thus, later in the year, the armies of India and China are scheduled to hold their first ever joint manoeuvres, only weeks after China conducts exercises with Russia and other Central Asian countries under the banner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Combined with the ongoing joint training with Thailand’s armed forces, it’s a busy year for the PLA as it enters its eighth decade in existence.

And while the joint military exercises point to a sharp symbolic shift in China’s external relations with its neighbours, an internal shift vis-a-vis its own history is also discernable at the military museum. A former Defence Minister, Lin Biao, whose name was expunged from history books after he was accused of plotting to kill Mao Zedong, has been resurrected and included in the exhibition. His portrait is prominently included in a display of the “Ten Marshals,” a group who are considered to be the founding fathers of the PLA.

Lin, a long-marcher and one of Mao’s closest comrades was designated as the Chairman’s constitutional successor in the late 1960s. However he died in disgrace in 1971 in a mysterious air crash over Mongolia. He was branded a traitor for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mao and was on the run when he died.

China’s official news agency Xinhua quoted a senior researcher at the Military Museum as saying the decision to include Lin in the exhibit was intended to demonstrate “objective thinking” and to “show history as it was.”

Political analysts within China remain divided over the interpretation of this move. Some commentators have claimed that the inclusion of Lin’s portrait in the exhibition is tantamount to his rehabilitation, and could thus be a first step towards an official reinterpretation of modern Chinese history, including thorny issues like the Cultural Revolution and 1989 Tiananmen protests. Others have dismissed the importance of Lin’s inclusion as exaggerated. They point out that military histories have been known to include sections on Lin’s contributions since the 1980s.

At the exhibition itself there is the usual rush of people taking photographs in front of Lin’s portrait. However, a 12-year-old boy who is clicking away with his camera shakes his head in ignorance when asked if he recognises the picture of Lin. Embarrassed by the attention he smiles shyly before running off to wait in queue for a chance to fire a warship’s gun.

The PLA celebrates its birthday today, August 1.