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

ut also safeguard . . . the ocean. . . .” 157 On December
27, 2006, in a speech to PLAN officers attending a
Communist Party meeting, Hu referred to China as “a
great maritime power (海洋大国)” and declared that
China’s “navy force should be strengthened and modernized”
and should continue moving toward “blue
water” capabilities. 158 China’s 2008 Defense White Paper
stated that “the Navy has been striving . . . to gradually
develop its capabilities of conducting cooperation
in distant waters.” 159 Chinese defense policy intellectuals
who are not directly connected with the PLAN
also generally consider SLOC security to be a major
issue. 160
China may already be pursuing the ability to project
naval power further than would be necessary in a
Taiwan contingency. China’s 2008 Defense White Paper
for the first time treats the ground forces as a distinct
service equivalent to the Navy, Air Force, and Second
Artillery, 161 and there are increasing indications that
the PLA may abandon the present configuration of
military regions in favor of a more streamlined and
outward-looking organizational posture. 162 These
emerging developments, and the gradually increasing
though still disproportionately low representation of
PLAN officers on the CMC, CCP Central Committee,
and at the helm of PLA institutions suggests that the
ground forces are becoming less dominant within the
military and that the PLAN may grow correspondingly
over time in funding and mission scope.
As the most technology intensive, 163 comprehensive,
strategic-level (day-to-day), multirole, multidimensional,
diplomatically-relevant, and naturally
internationally-oriented of the services, the PLAN
might stand to benefit most from such an increasingly
“externalized” orientation. 164
334