Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #472623 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

Review
avid Shambaugh, editor of Power Shift: China and Asia's New Dynamics : Xiaobing Li has added a most useful study to the growing literature on the People''s Liberation Army of China. In more than a decade of research and careful mining of sources, Li has written a comprehensive chronological study but also a thematically intriguing one. He situates the PLA in Chinese society and shows the various sociopolitical influences that have impacted the military as an institution. This is a novel approach. Li''s study deserves wide readership in the China studies community and among China security specialists. -- avid Shambaugh, editor of Power Shift: China and Asia''s New Dynamics

Chen Jian, author of Mao's China and the Cold War : A superb job in producing the first comprehensive history in English on the development of the Chinese military. The study is supported by extensive research on Chinese sources made available in the past two decades. It explains the implications of China''s military modernization in the twenty-first century. It is highly revealingand highly recommended. -- Chen Jian, author of Mao''s China and the Cold War

David M. Finkelstein, coeditor of Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since : A superb volume that will be a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on the Chinese armed forces. This study is at once an operational history and a political history, as well as an institutional history of a military about which much too little is understood. The interviews and the human dimensions of the narrative put the ''people'' back into the People''s Liberation Army. -- David M. Finkelstein, coeditor of Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949

Gary J. Bjorge Journal of Military History : “This book will be of benefit to all those interested in PLA institutional history, PLA operational history, PLA transformation through the years, and the political history of the People’s Republic. It provides much information, some of it unique, about many significant events and developments. I recommend it to those interested in China, its military, and its relations with the rest of the world.”--Gary J. Bjorge, The Journal of Military History


Jonathan D. Thomas The American Graduate : “A History of the Modern Chinese Army is a crucial first step for English-langauge history of the PLA. Viewed in light of China’s steadily ascending military spending, paired with the growing shadow cast on the world stage, this is a compelling and informative read for scholars of Asian history and the general public alike.”

Customer Reviews

Promises Much but Delivers Little
Xiaobing Li, a professor at the University of Central Oklahoma, sets out to write a social history of the transformation of China's People's Liberation Army (which includes the air force and navy, as well) between 1949 and the present. Although the author presents no real thesis - other than his recognition that the PLA has evolved from a poorly-educated, low-technology force into a better-educated, moderate to high technology force - his intent is to provide insight into Chinese military transformation. The author also cites the lack of access to Chinese sources as hindering previous histories of the PLA. On the whole, this book has some interesting sections with some new information here and there, but it generally fails to accomplish its objectives. Social military histories - such as John A. Lynn's The Bayonets of the Republic (1984) or Samuel F. Scott's studies of the French Army - usually rely on extensive demographic information, but Dr. Li's book has no charts or appendices. While he does incorporate several new Chinese first-person accounts to buttress his narrative, they ultimately provide only anecdotal insight, not a comprehensive look at the Chinese military. In essence, this book is a case of someone marketing the fact that he has first-hand experience of a particular subject, but who failed to conduct the actual research to support a theory that he never puts forth.

This history is divided into nine chapters, with the first quarter of the book focused on the pre-1949 period. The author begins discussing military traditions in Chinese history but shoots himself in the foot by citing Disney's Mulan as "an accurate depiction." Normally, serious scholarly work in military history avoids using cartoons for references. These early chapters highlight several problems with this author's approach, particularly a tedious writing style. At times, the author seems to accept Chinese Communist dogma as truth (he was born in China and served in the PLA in the 1970s), such as his assertion that China received no support from Western countries against the 19th Century Taiping Rebellion (he completely misses the fact that `Chinese' Gordon and F. T. Ward raised the "Ever Victorious Army' - the first Western-trained Chinese army). At any point, he notes that the CCP jailed 1.27 million counter-revolutionaries and executed 710,000 but then he says Communist China was `not a police state." The author then gets completely wrapped around the axle talking about peasants, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Mao Zedong for the next 50 pages - so much for a history of the Chinese Army! Instead of analysis, he quotes Communist dogma that, "the peasants' enthusiasm would bring about the CCP's early victory in the civil war." What garbage. Even as far as the Chinese Civil War goes, this book really provides no insight into why the KMT Army lost or the Communists won.

The focus does not begin to shift to the Chinese Army until Chapter three on the war in Korea. Although there is no doubt that the PLA inflicted heavy losses on UN forces in the first six months of Chinese intervention in Korea, the author is quick to cite Communist successes but silent on Chinese defeats during UN counterattacks in 1951. The social history of the PLA is essentially divided into the peasant/conscript phase of 1949-1954, the conversion to a Soviet-style conventional military in 1955-1967, a period of anarchy in 1967-1972 during the Cultural Revolution and a gradual drift to a more modern military after 1972. Some of the best parts of this book are detailed sections on the Second Quemoy-Matsu crisis in 1955 and the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. Here and there, the author injects some very good first-person accounts, but unfortunately they are not really tied together to support any real thesis. They are interesting, but inconclusive.

The final chapter, on the Chinese military after the 1989 Tianamen Square Incident (which is given short shrift), is particularly unsatisfying. While the author notes the increasingly technological nature of the PLA - particularly bombers, submarines and missiles - the changes are not really qualified in any way (e.g. are PLA forces good enough to provide leverage in a Taiwan crisis?). Indeed, Taiwan is given short shrift and there is no real comment on how the PLA might perform in a war versus the United States or Taiwan. The author puts great stock in the fact that the PLA is recruiting better-educated personnel and that it is spending more on weapons, but he fails to understand the social implications. In order to get better-educated recruits, the PLA had to drop its terms of service to only 2 years, but more sophisticated weapons require longer training times; therefore, by the time that the PLA gets a trained soldier, they only have about a year of active service left. Nor does the author comment on the lack of reserves or a professional NCO on the PLA - which is odd for a self-professed social history. The author also peddles the facile belief that increased military spending equates to greater military efficiency - go ask Saddam Hussein about that one!Ultimately, this book promises much, but delivers little.

An Excellent and Tremendously Thought Provoking Book!
This is an EXCELLENT book - tremendously well researched and written and extremely timely. Once I picked it up I read it cover to cover.

Professor Xiaobing Li is extremely well qualified to author a book on the modern Chinese Army. Professor of History and Director of the Western Pacific Institute at the University of Central Oklahoma, he has authored a previous book on the Chinese Army in the Korean War and served in China's People's Liberation Army.

Beginning with the Chinese Revolution, Professor Li discusses the various stages in the development of the PLA. He writes, for example, that more than 2.3 million Chinese troops participated in the Korean War supported by another 800,000 non-combatant volunteers. The Chinese suffered more than one million casualties, inclusing 152,000 dead.

Anyone interested in how the Chinese military would sieze Taiwan has only to read the chapter on Russianizing the PLA. Professor Li provides unparalleled insights into Chinese joint amphibious planning and operations to seize Taiwan and its surrounding islands. I was left with little doubt, at the conclusion of this chapter, that if the Chinese apply themselves to the seizure of Taiwan they will succeed - and quickly!

Li also discusses China's war with India in 1962, (resulting in more than 10,000 casualties between the two sides), and Vietnam, between 1965 and 1970 (resulting in some 65,000 casualties) and the PLA's border clashes with Soviet troops between 1969 and 1971.

More importantly, he provides detailed biographical information on key Chinese civilian and military leaders up to the present day. Anyone believing that Hu Jintao, the current Chinese leader, is reform oriented has only to read that he spent four years in Tibet as Communist Party Secretary crushing the independence movement and Buddhist rebellions there.

Professor Li concludes that China must build a confident and democratic society before it can have a modern army. Still, while factors of insecurity and instability remain, the Chinese currently enjoy a favorable surrounding security environment. It thus seems possible, according to Professor Li, for the country and the PLA to avoid a general war for a fairly long period of time. "Relaxation," he writes, "is still the general trend in international security."

The author concludes, however, that the issue of Taiwan's independence remains a highly sensitive and dangerous one.

This is a tremendously good read! Still, I believe Professor Li remains too optimistic about China and its future use of military force. The country is consuming increasingly huge quantities of oil, at a time when world supplies are dwindling, and faces a shortage of fresh drinking water that borders on the catastrophic. Some 70 percent of the country's water is polluted, with 30 percent of that toxic. It will soon reach a tipping point at which technology will not be able to offer a short term solution.

It is clear that the growing need for oil and water will jeopardize the country's economic stability and growth and could cause its leaders to turn their eyes to the near abroad for a quick, short term solution. The answer seems to lie in Siberia, with its vast reserves of Russian oil and Lake Baikal, which holds twenty percent of the world's fresh water and forty percent of Russia's.

Thus the chapters on the Sino-Soviet border disputes, in Professor Li's book and those on the Taiwan crisis become especially relevant, for if China ponders war in the west, against a Russia denuded of conventional military forces in Siberia, it must first divert the world's attention by a crisis in the east.

"A History of the Modern Chinese Army" is a tremendously thought-provoking work and a valuable contribution to the literature on the PLA in the 21st Century.