Journal of International Studies

Each year, the PLA gets millions of new recruits. For a few weeks anyway. China’s Police Chief Mystery Women Warriors Break Down Barriers Across Asia The Panchen Lama Mystery ‘Warriors’ Realm What Finland Can Teach China There’s a joke among students here at Northeastern University in China’s northeast city of Shenyang. Every fall, it begins, America’s intelligence agencies are baffled by the sudden and drastic increase in the ranks of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). For a few brief weeks, the PLA’s numbers are swelled with new recruits – 6 million last year – curiously all on college campuses. But within a month, the new recruits have vanished, nowhere to be seen. The Americans are left scratching their heads, wondering what happened to these mystery warriors and when they might reappear. The “mystery warriors” are really just college freshmen. Every year, first-year university students all across China participate in their mandatory regimen of milit...

Most of the debate that has surrounded the emergence of China as a major military player in the Asia-Pacific has focused on the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) development of an  anti-access/area-denial  (A2AD) strategy and its potential impact on a U.S.-led regional security architecture that remains anchored to old concepts. As China expands its military capabilities and, alongside those, its claims to various territories within the region, the PLA has developed and fielded a variety of platforms that are intended to deter and delay external intervention by U.S. forces in, say, an armed conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The much-discussed  Dong Feng 21D (DF-21D)  anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), which could theoretically threaten a U.S. carrier battle group on its way to the region, is at the core of such a strategy. Far less discussed, however, is the fact that China’s A2/AD strategy, or the likelihood that it will directly affect the course of a conflic...

Last week a senior PLA officer detailed China’s plans for establishing air and sea control over the South China Sea. In an  interview with state media  last week, Senior Colonel Du Wenlong was asked what China’s “trump card” was for establishing sea and air control over the South China Sea. In response, Du highlighted the importance of cooperation between China’s fighter jets and airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft would play in allowing to establish “sea and air control” in the South China Sea. Specifically, he said that cooperation between the J-10 series, J-11 series, J-16, KJ 2000, and KJ 200 “gives China control over enemy targets in an extended airspace through strong air-to-air attack capability.” Once China gained command of the skies, Du noted, it would be able to impose control over the waters in the South China Sea by using aircraft with air-to-sea functions, backed by submarines and surface vessels like advanced destroyers and frig...

As part of its Pacific  pivot , the United States has been making substantial increases in its Asia-based forces, including a bolstering of the U.S. Marine Corps  amphibious combat capabilities . One hypothetical scenario that the Navy and Marine Corps train for would be a strike against Taiwan and a possible amphibious combined force invasion carried out by China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). A key spearhead of any such action would be the PLA Marines. The PLA Marines are at present a relatively small amphibious assault force, numbering just two brigades with roughly 6,000 men each. Nevertheless, they are reinforced by naval and air power, amphibious artillery and armor. The PLA Marines are considered an elite special operations force, and theoretically therefore “punch above their weight class.” They are well trained and well equipped, using both the latest Chinese and  Russian  technology. They are trained for amphibious and airborne assault oper...