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

ternal MOOTW has, in fact, had any negative impact
on the PLA’s core mission or its pursuit of modernization.
Furthermore, while some within the PLA seemingly
resent the burden of MOOTW, others argue that
MOOTW actually contribute to the PLA’s ability to
perform its core mission. PLA commentators appear
to be particularly interested in establishing a unified
wartime and emergency response mobilization system.
If designed in a way that guaranteed a leading
role for the PLA, such a unified system could conceivably
enhance the PLA’s power by providing a legal
and institutional basis for PLA access to social, economic,
financial, and human resources, and by preventing
the establishment of a competing stand-alone
civilian emergency response system.
No matter what the outcome of China’s internal
debate on emergency management, we can expect the
PLA, the PAP, the militia, and the reserves to continue
to play significant roles in maintaining domestic security,
responding to natural and man-made disasters,
and delivering disaster relief. American scholars can
continue to gain further insight into some of the operational
capabilities and weaknesses of the PLA and
some of China’s domestic social and infrastructural
vulnerabilities by further observation and analysis of
the growing legal and institutional frameworks for
and prosecution of internal MOOTW. There are, however,
no grounds to conclude that MOOTW represent
a fundamental distraction from the PLA’s main mission
or that China’s mass incidents and ethnic unrest
represent a fatal internal weakness. China may be
more adaptable and less fragile than it sometimes appears.
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