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

to gain an objective control measure to supplement its
traditional subjective control mechanisms. However,
true professionalism is possible only alongside a high
level of de-politicization. The CCP has long engaged
in a battle to fight against “Western attempts to corrupt
the PLA” (through their examples of “delinking
party-military ties,” “de-politicization of the military,”
and “nationalized military”). This struggle will
only intensify as the PLA’s professionalization deepens.
The danger to the CCP control of the gun is clear:
Party control, based on ideational indoctrination, is
progressively diluted as the PLA undertakes internal
changes driven by Information Technology (IT)-RMA
transformation. The CCP is clearly fighting a losing
battle.
The change in this fundamental relationship between
the CCP and PLA is making its subtle impact
on such important matters such as the selection of the
next generation of civil and military leaders and China’s
dealing with the Taiwan issue. The two authors
point out that by embarking on building professionalism
as a key organizational objective, the PLA will
develop its own corporate identity and logic of operational
autonomy. Therefore, as U.S. policymakers assess
the long-term prospects for China’s civil-military
relations, the possiblity remains that dichotomous
CCP-PLA institutional imperatives may create fault
zones in the Party’s control of the gun.
The PLA at Home.
In Chapter 5, Kevin Pollpeter offers an assessment
of the PLA’s transformation into an informationized
force. He uses the PLA’s ability to conduct joint operations
as the metric for evaluating its level of informa-
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