Rising influence of Chinese military worries Tokyo: Voice of Russia

Traditionally, Japan's annually-published White Paper on Defense lists the technical achievements of the Chinese armed forces. This time the Japanese analysts also mentioned the political role of the army in China. They believe that the situation there is quite worrisome. The authors of the White Paper believe that the leadership of the People's Liberation Army of China has lately allowed itself to come up with independent statements and evaluations more frequently. This concerns not only the issues of military development, but also foreign policy.

Last year the People's Liberation Army of China set up a department of strategic planning. According to official sources, the new department is preparing plans and proposals for the reform of the armed forces and developing recommendations for the distribution of the strategic resources of the People's Liberation Army of China. However, the range of issues covered by the new department also includes the analysis of the military and political situation in the world. According to foreign analysts, this reflects the growing influence of the military on decision-making in the sphere of external policy.

Occasionally, the military come up with quite radical proposals. The recent statement made by Major General Jin Yi'nan who heads one of the main think tanks of the Chinese Ministry of Defense, the Institute of Strategic Studies, made a lot of noise. The Chinese official stated that the dispute with Tokyo over the Diaoyu Islands (called the Senkaku Islands in Japan) is ?too narrow?. In his opinion, Beijing must bring up with Tokyo the issue of control over the Ryukyu Islands (a group of islands in the East-Chinese Sea, a part of which together with the Senkaku Islands is included in the Japanese Okinawa Prefecture).

According to Russian Asian policy analyst Victor Pavlyatenko, the Japanese are mostly worried not by the sharp nature of some of the statements made by the Chinese generals, but by the non-transparent nature of the military policy decision-making in China. However, he believes that one should not worry that the radical views will determine China's foreign policy. In the same manner, the rise in military spending in itself does not mean growing militaristic sentiment in the country, Victor Pavlyatenko is convinced.

?Everything always depends not on the military potential, but on the political intentions of the country's leadership. At present, the Chinese leadership has no intension to pose some sort of threat or resolve its problems by military force. As far as the dispute between the military and political leadership goes, I don't believe it is important enough to even be discussed. The Pentagon is also unhappy with Obama's policy in some instances, but it does not mean that there is a division among the political leaders in the US.?

In Victor Pavlyatenko's opinion, the situation with the army's internal role is much trickier. Here a lot remains obscure for an outside observer. However, the surge of calls for the loyalty of the armed forces published by the official media sources point at the fact that not all is smooth between the Party leadership and the People's Liberation Army of China. Lately, the term ?cultural security in the army? has cropped up in the Chinese mass media. The issue is exactly the ideological purity and loyalty to the Party line. According to the Army press, the People's Liberation Army of China has not stayed away from the ideological struggle related to the ascent to power of the new generation of Chinese leaders.

As the Army newspaper Jiefangjun Bao points out, ?Among some of the party officials, there appeared such problems as the weakening of the ideals and consciousness, dilution of the party belief system, and hesitancy in the matters of principle.? The appearance of such remarks is no ordinary warning. It is a reflection of the complex problems of Chinese society that the armed forces cannot avoid.

Source: http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_08_01/Rising-influence-of-Chinese-military-worries-Tokyo/

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