The best strategy needs tactics

Since ancient times, a weak nation’s diplomacy has been reactive rather than proactive. Culture and the military are normally regarded as the soft power and hard power with which a nation engages with the world.

During more than 30 years of peace and rapid development, corruption has accrued within the People's Liberation Army. The investigations into Gu Junshan, the former deputy head of the logistics department of the PLA, and Xu Caihou, the former vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, which made public earlier this year, are considered part of a determined strategy conducted by President Xi Jinping to improve the quality and spirit of the military.

Remolding the spirit of the PLA should come before the rebuilding of its soul, and anti-corruption is seen as the only way to achieve this goal.

“It will generate a fatal influence on national security if the development of the military lags behind. Words depicting how China’s ill-developed military were attacked always sent me into deep grief when I read history books” said President Xi Jinping, during a meeting on December 27, 2013. That day was also the first day after commemorating the 120th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s birthday.

The name of the meeting, though known to insiders as an important one, has not been disclosed to public.

This quote is also listed in the newly published book titled Excerpts of Xi Jinping’s Remarks on Comprehensive and Deep Reforms.

Military reform is going hand-in-hand with a campaign against military corruption. Military reform was also written into the reform package of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, or the Third Plenum, which laid out plans to improve the defense industry, weaponry development, personnel training and military officers’ benefits.

China’s official media have repeatedly stressed that President Xi Jinping has personally drawn up and is directing this round of national defense and army reform.

Xi’s remarks at the unnamed meeting mentioned above fully express his strategy of building a modern military, said an analysis posted by an overseas edition of People’s Daily on its official WeChat, a popular instant messaging and phone mobile app in China.

A military drill was staged in late July amid various anniversaries - the 20th anniversary of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), the 100th anniversary of the First World War, and the founding of the PLA. The drill stood out from its predecessors as the PLA showed what it had got, making explicit its determination to win.

China plans to establish a collaborative command center in the East China Sea that will integrate its army, navy and air forces in the area, according to media reports. The move is believed to aimed at improving tactical capability.

The highest form of generalship is to balk (counter) the enemy's plans, said Sun Tzu, an ancient Chinese military strategist. What the PLA is doing now is also using psychology to “balk the enemy’s plans”. Xi promoted the idea of national rejuvenation soon after taking office. He also declared to the world it was the awakening of a sleeping lion, a term used by Napoleon Bonaparte to describe China as a weak nation with potential power. These remarks have sent the message that China is an active player in the global arena, a rising power which increasingly adopts its own stance in its exchanges with the US and which is no longer shy of showing its military capabilities.