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Cream_Filling posted:I think the biggest change in the role of the PLA in China was the movement in the 90s to divest the PLA of its enormous commercial and real-estate interests. Before, there was a literal "military-industrial complex" where the PLA directly ran the businesses that supplied it, from military goods to food. It also owned plenty of unrelated real estate and businesses as well. The idea was originally that the PLA would be a somewhat self-funded organization. One interesting spin-off of this was that the PLA began using their production facilities to make non-military goods, such as clothes and consumer articles (the example that came up most was washing machines for some reason). As you pointed out, this was originally allowed in order to secure more funding for the military. But it did lead to yet another reason why it was eventually banned, because it created the possibility that the PLA would be a military financially invested in peace. A PLA officer couldn't make much money if his factory was making machine guns. But if he could switch production over to washing machines, he stood to make personal gain. Part of me regrets that China discontinued this experiment. It might have led to an interesting case where a military would be the opposite of hawkish. "Declare war on Vietnam? Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what that would do to our third quarter figures?!?"
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Feb 14, 2012 23:52
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zero alpha posted:Anybody want to give me some background on why China attacked Vietnam in 1979, and tell me if there was more to it than Marxist-Leninism vs. Maoism? Several factors here. 1) China wanted to show Vietnam that the Soviets would not come to its aid in a conflict. This is probably the #1 issue here, because at this point China was worried to death about Soviet encirclement. If I recall correctly, the Soviets were very interested in using Vietnamese submarine and naval bases, and China wanted to make a point that the Soviet Union was not a reliable ally. China was successful in this objective. 2) China wanted to prevent the fall of its Cambodian ally. Vietnam was attacking Cambodia due to border frictions, and China wanted to prop up its ally. China was not successful in this objective. 3) China wanted to demonstrate its regional superiority over Vietnam, much like the Sino-Indian War of 1962. In many ways this war was planned as a limited operation more along the lines of a show of force rather than total war. The goals were to destroy the enemy forces so utterly that resistance would seem impossible. So they followed the formula of defeating the enemy forces and then withdrawing back across the border, as the had done in India in 1962. China was partially successful in this objective. While it did defeat Vietnamese forces in the region, these forces were not Vietnam's best troops and the Chinese took more losses than necessary for a complete victory. 4) There are a few other minor factors, like the persecution of ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, the Spratley Islands, the encouragement of the US. But I think they weren't as central as the first 3.
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Mar 25, 2012 01:53
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