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

mands of military modernization and the limited resources
provided by the party-state. A second set of
contradictions are between mechanization and informatization,
and between the requirements of warfare
and MOOTW. Further contradictions are spawned by
the complex operational challenges of MOOTW which
are of particular concern to the ground forces: contradictions
between self and enemy, and contradictions
among the people. Lastly, there is the implicit contradiction
between the PLA’s ongoing robust program
of modernization and Beijing’s continuing campaign
to persuade the rest of the world that China does not
pose a military threat to anyone.
To conclude, the core contradictions that the PLA
has been grappling with in the past few years are the
second set. It is this set of contradictions—dubbed the
“two incompatibles” that has been the focus of PLA
discourse. The message to China’s soldiers—delivered
in 2009 by none other than Hu Jintao himself—is
that the contradictions are not as severe as some have
made them out to be. According to Hu and others, the
key focus of the PLA ought to be on honing its military
capabilities to wage war. In sum, while MOOTW
is important, most important is being ready to fight
and win China’s future wars.
What can one say about the larger significance of
this analysis? First of all, the research offers important
hints as to where the PLA is heading and differences
within the military. The study provides a key window
into the formulation and development of military doctrine.
It is the PLA itself that seems to play the dominant
role in formulating doctrine. If the discourse in recent
years over the New Historic Missions is any indication,
doctrine is developed through a dialectic process
with significant vertical and horizontal dimensions as
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