are we positioning ourselves for the challenge when it comes

PRC’s New Military Law

Words, and the laws they make, mean things.

As the USA spent most of the month focused on today’s transition of power from President Trump to President Biden, the rest of the world moves forward.

The Chinese Communist Party at the start of the new year made official what many saw coming for a long time. In many ways, it only makes official what is already in practice.

As in all totalitarian societies, laws and words related to the use and control of state power are a powerful statement and “Ref. A.” for future action.

Via Christian Le Miere at the South China Morning Post;

On January 1, an amended National Defence Law came into effect after having been approved by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee. The seemingly technical, legalistic change would normally be unremarkable, but the amendments that were included could have profound effects on China’s legal standing and willingness to deploy its military overseas.

Some amendments continue the themes in domestic politics seen in recent years. They include establishing Xi Jinping Thought as a guiding principle, centralising decision-making around President Xi Jinping and prioritising the party over the state.

More significant in the new law is the change to “military activities carried out by the state”. Previously, the activities the law applied to were largely a broad description of effectively protecting the homeland, including to “guard and resist aggression” and “safeguard the sovereignty, unification, territorial integrity and security of our country”.

Now, with the addition of just three words, this description has expanded to incorporate far more expansive activities.

One of these words is “disruption”, a vague term that could include anything from protests in Hong Kong, Tibet or Xinjiang to unrest over socioeconomic conditions. Of even greater international import, though, was the inclusion of the phrase defending “development interests”. This phrase suggests China now considers all of its investments and economic activity, domestic and overseas, to be worthy of protection by military force.

Now, the new defence law theoretically enables China to deploy overseas in support of its economic interests. Given the country’s stellar growth during the past four decades and substantial increase in overseas investments as part of its “go out” policy since the turn of the century, these interests are varied and global.

It is easy to imagine, for instance, Chinese troops being deployed to Pakistan to protect its Belt and Road Initiative investments as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor from attack by Baloch separatists, or Chinese vessels escorting ships in the Persian Gulf as regional tensions rise.

The People’s Liberation Army could be deployed to a South Pacific island state that has descended into ungoverned unrest to secure mining interests and Chinese citizens.

Most of these adventures, if the Chinese decide to pursue them, will require access to and control of the seas.

The PLAN and the powerful industrial shipbuilding capacity it has access to, is positioned to support this policy.

Are we positioning ourselves for the challenge when it comes?

For the optimists out there, there is a lifeline;

This is not to say that China is about to become a global policeman in the guise of the United States. China has been a security free-rider for decades, with its last major military conflict being more than 40 years ago in 1979. It is unlikely to end the benefits of this situation in the short term.

The new defence law certainly suggests a greater willingness to deploy overseas in support of a wider range of missions, though. The post-Cold-War era of just a single superpower willing and able to deploy its military far from its shores might have just ended as the new year began.

But … perhaps it isn’t the role of policeman they are modeling … but that of enforcer.

As a final note, I’d like to end today’s post with one of my “alter calls.”

China has updated the fundamental law that governs her military. Not a huge structural change from what we can see, but not insignificant. The US military is still under the ossified and accretion covered Goldwater-Nichols from 1986. 35-yrs ago; conceptualized and signed in to law at the height of the Cold War against an empire dead for decades.

We are in the third decade of the 21st Century. We need to fundamentally restructure our defense establishment to align with a world that is passing us by.

 

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