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

nal security forces allowed riots to spiral out of control,
at the cost of substantial property damage and loss of
innocent civilian lives. Getting the response right—
neither too slow nor too fast—is a challenge that,
ultimately, requires accurate and timely intelligence
(something that seems to have been notably lacking
in the handling of unrest in Lhasa and Urumqi), acute
judgment, rapid decisionmaking, and a coordinated
command structure at the base level.
On the whole, China’s mass incidents and ethnic
unrest and the military’s role in handling them offer
few opportunities for American policy. In wartime, it
is possible (particularly if the war were going poorly
for China) that social, economic, and ethnic tensions
might weaken the Chinese government from within.
In this respect, mass incidents are further indication
of the “fragility” of China’s body politic—a factor that
the Chinese regime would need to consider in deciding
whether or not to engage a foreign power (Taiwan
and/or the United States in the Taiwan Strait, or
India on the Sino-Indian border) in military action. 106
American policymakers, too, should give some consideration
to the potential for internal unrest in China
in mind. In general, however, it would be a mistake
to interpret nonethnic mass incidents as evidence of
broad-based resistance to or alienation from the central
government. These incidents are generated by local
problems, and their primary targets are local Party
and government officials and local police.
Mass incidents with an ethnic dimension are more
complex, being generated by a combination of economic
issues, the styles and policies of local leaders,
and an ethnic and religious sense of difference from
the Han Chinese majority. Like nonethnic mass incidents,
the unrest in Lhasa (and other Tibetan areas) in
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