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

obsessed more with the high-tech “toys” than with
elusive politics. The outcome of this arrangement is the
joint CCP/PLA promotion of military professionalism
as a way for the former to use objective control measures
to supplement its traditional subjective control
mechanisms. 23 Promoting PLA professionalism thus
serves as a practical point of departure from Maoist
strong-man control based on factional manipulation,
overt ideological indoctrination and routine politicization.
There is consensus in the field that the PLA is
rapidly professionalizing. However, true PLA professionalization
is possible only alongside a high level of
depoliticization (去政治化). Here debate arises on how
depoliticized the PLA has become. 24 There are signs
of depoliticization in the PLA, based on a relatively
narrow perspective that the officers have largely taken
a noninterventionist approach to the Party’s internal
strife and to civilians’ decisionmaking process on nondefense
matters.
In further exploring this professionalization, it is
important to note that the PLA’s information technology
(IT)/revolution in military affairs (RMA)-driven
transformation has made the PLA a high-tech force,
increasingly unsuitable for domestic missions involving
street control. The rapid changes within the composition
of the PLA’s personnel structure, as reflected
by ever-rising proportions of returned students from
foreign countries, graduates from civilian universities,
and noncommissioned conscripts, contributes to the
PLA’s “expertise and corporateness.” 25 In the West,
the military has basically curbed its influence within
the national security policymaking process. 26 The
question for the PLA is whether its trend of nonintervention
on matters other than defense can be institu-
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