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

egy. National defense modernization was no longer an
isolated issue. It is a systemic requirement of China’s
development. As China’s development progresses,
its national security content and outreach will expand
from the traditional “national sovereignty security” to
the “national interest security;” from the traditional
territorial security to a wide variety of security in the
nation’s politics, system, economy, science and technology,
social life, culture, information, ideology, and
military. The level and quality of national defense and
military power affect China’s position in the evolving
international strategic order and the historic process of
China’s peaceful development, and eventually the life
and death of China. 13
TRANSFORMATION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
The new mission and prosperous-nation-strongmilitary
calls give blessing to China’s defense modernization
that has been going on for close to 20 years
under a different agenda—it is called 中国特色的军事
变革 (transformation in military affairs with Chinese
characteristics). 14
The impetus for the early start of China’s defense
modernization is twofold; both are closely related to
the United States. In a practical sense, China’s confrontations
with the United States during the 1996
Taiwan Strait crisis, the 1999 bombing of the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, the EP-3 incident in
2001, and so on, stimulated the Chinese to upgrade
the PLA’s fighting power. Their efforts unavoidably
jump-started China’s long-awaited defense modernization.
At the strategic level, the U.S.-led revolution in
military affairs (RMA) and its impressive demonstrations
in the Gulf War of 1991, the Kosovo campaign
12