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

24. New Year’s Day Message, “在党的十七大精神指引下开创
国防和军队现代化建设新局面” (“Promote a new situation in national
defense and army building modernization under the driving
spirit of the 17 Party Congress”), 解放军报 (Liberation Army
Daily), January 1, 2008.
25. Editorial note, “打造与时代同步的核心军事能力” (“Forge
core military capabilities in sync with the times”), 解放军报 (Liberation
Army Daily), May 2, 2009. There are apparently others but
these are not identified.
26. Wang Xixin (王西欣), “打造与时代同步的核心军事能力”
(“Forge core military capabilities in sync with the times”), 解放军
报 (Liberation Army Daily), May 2, 2009.
27. Editorial note, “打造与时代同步的核心军事能力” (“Forge
core military capabilities in sync with the times”), 解放军报 (Liberation
Army Daily), May 2, 2009.
28. Staff Commentator, “重点加强核心军事能力建设” (“Emphasize
strengthening the building of core military capabilities”),
解放军报 (Liberation Army Daily), March 18, 2009.
29. The Liberation Army Daily is published by the General Political
Department, but articles by “staff commentators” tend to
be a vehicle to transmit messages from the CMC to the rest of the
PLA.
30. Thus, a 2 million-man reduction of the militia (from 10 million
to 8 million) occurring under the 11th Five Year Plan (2006-
10) is unlikely to be followed by cuts of a comparable magnitude.
China’s National Defense in 2008, p. 37.
31. This “domestic drag” is a result of the enduring legacy
of the long-standing internal security and nonmilitary functions
historically performed by the armed forces in the communist era
in the periods both before and after 1949. This term overlaps with
the idea of a “Maoist drag” identified by Solomon Karmel in 1998.
However, “domestic drag” is broader and more all-encompassing
in scope and significance. On the earlier term, see Solomon Karmel,
“The Maoist Drag on China’s Military,” Orbis, Vol. 42, No. 3,
Summer 1998, pp. 375-386.
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