The recurrent and tiring round of talks, agreements and discussions without any significant breakthrough or even the possibility of the same seem to point that the border conflict has all the ingredients of becoming a major spoiler in Indo-China relations

China’s military conventionally has been dominated by its land troops, traced back to the time when the ‘Red Army of workers and peasants’ was founded in 1927. Ever since becoming the first constituent element of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), till assuming the role of the PLA as it is today, Chinese armed forces have borne the stamp of their revolutionary origin and combat experiences while transforming into a tri-service military force.

The historical status of China’s military has traditionally been influenced by its ground forces given that it was known to be a land power. China has put forth a justification of its military modernisation campaign as a reasonable chain of actions undertaken by a nation that seeks to update antiquated weapons systems and equipment and thus rationalise an outdated military structure. The policymakers in China have frequently noted its history of vulnerability to external aggression as the primary reference point.

Despite the modernisation effort focusing more upon the PLA Navy, Air Force and Second Artillery Corps, the PLA ground forces continue to bear the stamp of being the key authority that ensures sustenance of the proverbial rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) throughout China. PLA Army (PLAA) remains committed to guarding China’s nearly 22,000 km-long-land boundary. Given that China has sought territorial dispute resolution with 12 out of 14 land neighbours including the Central Asian Republics, Russia and Vietnam, the ongoing land boundary dispute that Beijing shares with India and Bhutan remains a source of concern. China’s military modernisation campaign, especially its readiness to fight a local border war, raises caution for India. This can be attributed to Chinese military’s doctrinal strategy of fighting local limited border wars under informationised conditions. China recognises the McMahon Line as its boundary with Myanmar, but refuses to do so with India. Prior to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India in December 2010, an official Xinhua news agency report described the Sino-Indian border to be about 2,000 km long. However, the official Indian count of the operational border stands at nearly 3,500 km (not taking into account the line separating Pakistan occupied Kashmir [PoK] and China). This appeared to be a tactical strategy of exercising pressure against India since the discrepancy in the figures is too large to be treated merely as an inadvertent error, that too coming from an official news channel.

PLA Army

Addressing the often conferred to ‘bloated’ size of the army, the PLA has streamlined its military to create a more professional and efficient fighting force having undergone two large reductions in force in the past decade, starting with about 5,00,000 personnel from 1997 to 2000 and another 2,00,000 from September 2003 to 2005. The past decade has also witnessed enhanced focus on improving the system of leadership and command; streamlining the staff offices and the affiliated organs at the Corps level and above, so as to directly compress the command chains and further improve the operational command system to strengthen the command functions.

To accommodate the loss of over 5,00,000 troops and to prepare for new missions, the PLA Army has changed its structure greatly since the mid-1990s, when the main combat force was organised into 24 Group Armies (equivalent to a Corps), approximately 90 manoeuvre (infantry and tank) divisions, around 15 brigades (mostly tank), plus scores of artillery, anti-aircraft artillery (AAA), combat support, and local/border defence units. Interestingly, a book published by the National Defense University titled Zhanyi Xue (On Military Campaigns), provides a detailed insight as to how the PLA proposes to conduct operations at Group Army and higher levels in future military campaigns i.e. the operational level of war. The book defines campaigns as “combat operations comprising a series of battles conducted by army corps-level units under a unified command to achieve a local or an overall objective in a war.”

That the ground forces’ Generals are the dominant lot in the present structure of the PLA’s Generals cream of the crop is not surprising. As stated in a China Brief report, ground forces’ represent a lion’s share or 71 per cent of the total. Reportedly, 45 per cent of Hu’s Generals are non-ground forces, compared to 25 per cent and 24 per cent to that of Jiang Zemin’s and Deng Xiaoping’s.