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The 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) finds it in the throes of a dramatic reform process that has discarded the principles and practices advocated by its founder. Necessitated by the sorry state of the PLA at the end of the Maoist period and facilitated by the sweeping political changes that have occurred since then, this process seeks to convert the Chinese army into a modern and professional force. Although large-scale weapons updating has been ruled out for economic and technological reasons, nevertheless considerable progress has been made, while in other areas the changes have been fundamental and far-reaching.

The Chinese claim, for ideological and political reasons, that military doctrine in the PRC after Mao is a direct descendant of his doctrine of "people's war". However, in practice they themselves have undermined this. After critically examining the military doctrine after Mao, the author concludes that as an operational guide to fighting and force building, Maoist doctrine has not been developed by China's post-Mao leaders; it has been almost completely abandoned. (DÜI-Sen)

Four years after the start of the post-Mao era in China, civil-military relations are still in a state of flux. The warmth which characterized these relations in the aftermath of Mao's death and the downfall of his radical supporters—since vilified as the "Gang of Four"— has cooled off considerably. The harmony of the earlier period has given way to a more complex situation which contains elements of both cohesion and conflict. Although the elements of conflict have so far been firmly contained by overriding common interests shared by leaders of the party and the People's Liberation Army (PLA), signs of strain have appeared in their relationship as a result of their inability to resolve several issues. The most divisive issue is the technological modernization of the PLA. The professional military have made major gains in other areas pertaining to military modernization, but the absence of agreement on this cardinal issue constitutes a source of simmering friction.

The problem for the Chinese leadership is to reconcile its stated policy of military modernization with its inability to modernize the weapons and equipment of the armed forces quickly and comprehensively. How it will come to grips with this problem is still not clear. This uncertainty is in part due to the dearth of hard data on the sensitive subject, but in part is derived from the fact that the Chinese have not yet definitely decided how to handle the problem. The most that can be said is that while the policy direction is distinct and firm, the pace and programme of its implementation are still an open issue. (International Political Science Association)

Whatever may have been the objectives of the principal participants in the Cultural Revolution, there can be little doubt that they did not include what turned out to be, at least in the short term, the most striking and significant outcome of the upheaval: the rise of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to a pivotal position in China's power structure. Compelled to intervene in the political process when the disruptive effects of the struggle reached dangerous dimensions, the army gradually ascended to the commanding heights of political power in the provinces, and acquired a substantial voice in the policy-making councils of Peking. When the Ninth Congress of the Party finally met in April 1969 to write the epilogue to the Cultural Revolution, it was the PLA rather than the Party that held most of the key positions of power in China.

No observer of the Chinese political scene will argue with a frontpage headline in the New York Times of June 26, 1966, which said that a "titanic struggle" was taking place in China. This struggle has thrown China into turmoil and has already claimed the political careers of at least one senior Politburo member, two top Party propaganda officials (one of them an alternate member of the Politburo) as well as numerous Party and non-Party functionaries—and the full extent of the purge has yet to come to light. The Chinese themselves, with characteristic restraint, have proclaimed that "this great cultural revolution has no parallel in scale, in sweep, in strength or in momentum." Whatever the final outcome of this "revolution," it can be safely said that the Chinese political landscape will be considerably altered after it has run its unpredictable course.

One of the most pressing needs of the Chinese Communists when they established their régime, was to convert the sprawling semi-guerrilla force which had brought them to power into a modern army capable of maintaining that power. China's leaders were acutely aware of this need and they lost little time in launching the armed forces on the long march to modernisation. No modernisation, however, could have succeeded without large numbers of officers skilled in running a complex military establishment. The Red Army commanders, though resourceful and battle-tested, were by and large not equipped for this task. It was necessary, therefore, to develop a professional officer corps.