Emerging From Behind The Great Wall: Understanding The PLA's Participation In Combined Exercises

Within the extensive body of scholarly work on China's dynamic status in the international community, relatively little has been written specifically about China's increasing use of "military diplomacy" [junshi waijiao] over the last two decades. Even less has been written about the Chinese People's Liberation Army's (PLA) recent participation in combined military exercises [lianhe yanxi] with other countries. The premise of this thesis is that an analysis of the PLA's participation in combined military exercises is valuable because it can yield useful insight into how China perceives its relations with other states as well as the manner by which it is seeking to create a new place for itself within the international community.China's foreign policy has experienced dramatic changes in the nearly sixty years since the CCP came to power in 1949. During this time, foreign policy has been heavily shaped by two influences. The first influence is nationalism as manifest by the desire to overcome historical humiliation and regain great power status. The second influence has been pragmatism as exemplified by the reform and opening up policies initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, and continued to this day by his successors. Together, these influences have resulted in a new kind of foreign policy designed to promote a peaceful international environment within which China can pursue its comprehensive domestic development goals unmolested. As China has used its new wealth to modernize the PLA, it has formulated and promulgated a security policy dubbed the "New Security Concept." This policy is based on recognition of a wide range of security threats, including terrorism, which require unprecedented security cooperation between states to successfully address. Moreover, as China's rise and the PLA's modernization have caused regional concern and suspicion regarding China's intentions, China has made military diplomacy a key part of building cooperative, positive relations with its regional neighbors and other international powers. In 2002 China's military diplomacy expanded to include combined exercises with other states for the first time.China's combined exercises have been remarkable for the way they reflect China's overall foreign policy principles. In keeping with its omni-directional security diplomacy, China's twenty-eight combined exercises have been held with eighteen different partners in both bilateral and multilateral venues. China has taken special care to ensure these combined exercises are balanced in frequency, partners, and locations so that they cannot be construed to target any third country. No single country has dominated China's exercise schedule. The majority of its partners thus far have been SCO member states, regional neighbors, and the other members of the United Nations Security Council. Noting which states China has not engaged in bilateral combined exercises, and surmising the possible reasons for why not, is of additional importance when analyzing these exercises. Japan and South Korea are two such examples. Finally, an additional aspect can be observed in China's combined exercises and that is the pragmatic, building-block nature of these exercises. China deliberately starts with simple exercise goals, carefully evaluates whether or not the exercises have promoted its strategic agenda, and then gradually expands the scope of its exercises as it gains confidence and experience. The expansion of China's military diplomacy to include combined exercises has been watched with some ambivalence by the United States. The security relationship between the two countries continues to be characterized by wariness and uncertainty due primarily to the potential for armed conflict over Taiwan, but also because of a history of crises punctuating the last twenty years. Nevertheless, both sides seek ways to manage their security relationship and engagement in combined exercises plays a role. The U.S. welcomes China's participation in combined exercises with other states inasmuch as they serve to increase PLA transparency and influence it to become a "responsible stakeholder" in the success of the international community. But the U.S. is wary of any Chinese efforts construed to limit U.S. access to Central Asia, or of Chinese exercises which may indicate the creation of a more formal regional security alliance from which the U.S. is excluded. In the single Sino-U.S. maritime exercise held thus far, the U.S. side experienced some frustration because of the different approaches to exercises taken by the two sides. The U.S. is more functionally oriented and seeks to increase its operational and tactical capabilities. China is primarily focused on the strategic aspects of the exercises and is more concerned with symbolism rather than substance.The future of China's combined exercises is still under debate both in Beijing and inside the PLA. China's continuing comprehensive national development, growing international security interests, and corresponding trends in the PLA's modernization support the view that combined exercises are here to stay as a feature of China's military diplomacy. But despite trends pointing towards a greater outward-looking posture for the PLA, there remains significant internal institutional inertia that might serve to keep China's combined exercises within present limits. Combined exercises mark a significant departure from the PLA's previous isolation and secretive institutional culture. China will continue to proceed carefully and deliberately in planning its participation in future combined exercises to ensure they remain within the context of China's overall foreign policy goals and consistent with its security strategy.