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Review of "The Armed Forces of China"
China Defense.com
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Review of "The Armed Forces of China"
by Xinhui
The book is by You Ji. Published by I B Tauris & Co Ltd; ISBN: 1860644872; Oct, 1999; Softcover; 272 Pages.
I noticed a few interesting points:
"Chinese have not underestimated the present backwardness of the PLA·e By the Chinese' own account the PLA is in a dangerous transitional process. Many obsolete weapons need to be decommissioned but replacement is hard to come by·e..and it is very fortunate for the PLA that Russia suddenly opened its arsenal for China to shop. With a quick fix from foreign purchases, the PLA army result in a small number of elite troops (rapid response units) have been established and equipped with the best weapons the PLA can obtain."
I would have to argue otherwise. The formation of elite units is not due to Russia arsenals, but rather a needed steps for modernization. One aspect of modernization is specialization. During the late 80s, each MR was tasked to form its own special units (commando). And if you look at the overall Russia arms in Chinese service, they are mainly in the hands of AF and Navy. Yes, the army did get some 300 T80U, but for a total 200K of RDF, the impact of those MBT is none to minimal at best. Having new tanks does not mean better fighting capabilities. The Soviet has 7 times more tanks then Germany, including some T-34, and yet, they did not stop the German until winter of 42 and paid a heavy price to do so.
You must also look at training, support, leadership, doctrine and etc. China's military hardware in the 80s and 90s are not all Russians. If you look at China's military trucks, the backbone of logistics, they have US and European influence. Benz has been making heavy trucks in Xijing since 1988. The DengFong truck has AMC engine and most Class 8 semi-truck are copies of Freightliner Classic XL class with Cumming engine. The CEO of Freightliner was not happy about it. My counter point is that the formation RDF and commando units are not a quick fix by Russian arms, but rather a PLA's natural modernization path.
Deng get much if not all the credits for the modernization. I do agree with that.
Other point the author argues is that the PLA launched a number of far reaching military reforms in the 1980s. Such as the demobilized of 1 million troops in 1985. However, the reform was pointed to the Soviet Union threat and it was an army wide and general training reform. It differ then the creation of RDF at later times(page 6).
