The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

ilities are incompatible with the demands of carrying
out the army’s historic missions.” 24 This contradiction
is broken down into what have been dubbed “the two
incompatibles” (两个不相适应).
The first “incompatible” is between the process
of mechanization and the process of informatization.
25 In other words, as the first decade of the 21st
century draws to a close, the PLA remains primarily a
mechanized force rather than an informatized military.
The overall level of information technology employed
across the PLA is low and rudimentary despite pockets
of high-tech information technology (IT) sophistry.
Writing in 2009 in the pages of the Liberation Army
Daily, Lieutenant General Wang Xixin, Commander
of the 38th Group Army, contended: “The stove pipe
issue (烟囱问题) is perhaps the greatest challenge we
currently face in army capability building.” From his
position in the Lower Echelon addressing an audience
at the Higher and Middle Echelons, Wang defined the
problem as not having “strong systemic combat capability.”
The warfighter lamented that “. . . no matter
how strong a single capability is, we will not be able
to gain initiatives on a battlefield in which the fundamental
feature is confrontation between systems.” 26
The second “incompatible” is one between the
demands of war and nonwar missions. Indeed, the
editors at the Liberation Army Daily have identified
the existence of a contradiction between the demands
placed on the PLA by “war and military operations
other than war” (战争与非战争军事行动). 27
The disgruntlement within the PLA prompted
a response directly from the top. Hu Jintao gave a
speech to the PLA delegation at the 2nd Session of the
11th National People’s Congress in March 2009. In the
address, he reportedly “clarified” (明确) the “relation-
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