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

differences that are often times interpreted as policy
differences.
Institutionally, it is hard for major policy disagreement
to emerge. The Party’s Small Leading Group on
Taiwan Affairs(对台工作领导小组) largely runs Taiwan
Affairs on behalf of the CMC. Put another way,
Hu is chair of the Group more because he is commander
in chief than because he is the Party boss. 61
Ultimate PLA control of Beijing’s Taiwan policy could
be traced back to a deliberate design of Mao in the
1950s when Taiwan affairs were exclusively military
affairs. The report on Taiwan affairs by civilian agencies
was sent to the CMC. The Small Group was established
in 1978 when Beijing decided that the Taiwan
challenge should not be dealt with by military means
only. Contacts with old Kuomintang (KMT) friends/
foes needed to be restored as a platform for a new
Taiwan policy pronounced by Ye Jianying (叶剑英) in
1979. This highlighted the Group’s missions of united
front work. Yet, the bulk of the Taiwan affairs were
handled by military and state security bodies in PLA
Headquarter Departments. Since the 1980s, Taiwan
affairs have become multidimensional, incorporating
economic, cultural, and legal matters. Jiang and Hu
have laid more emphasis on political and economic
aspects of Taiwan affairs in the open, with military issues
to be handled in the background. However, war
or peace is the ultimate concern in Beijing’s Taiwan
policy, and all other aspects of cross-Strait interaction
service this consideration. So the military’s leadership
is strategic and directional, although not too visible in
Beijing’s daily running of Taiwan affairs. Even when
Deng Yingchao (邓颖超), widow of Zhou Enlai (周恩
来), was the nominal head of the Group in the early
1980s when united front work was made central to the
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