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

ever, is giving way to a more law-governed employment
of the PLA in China’s emerging MOOTWs.
In operational terms, the PLA’s recent disaster relief
experiences underline continued problems with
equipment, logistics, airlift capability, and joint operations.
Training, specialized rescue units, and equipment
(both rudimentary and specialized) were all in
short supply. The lack of heavy helicopter transport
capability and the PLAAF’s apparent inability to efficiently
deliver large numbers of troops to the disaster
areas are particularly striking. The PLA has been
working to increase its force projection capabilities and
its ability to perform joint operations. But the difficulties
encountered in mobilizing and delivering forces
for the earthquake disaster relief effort, and the vulnerability
of south China’s transportation and power
infrastructure as seen in the snow and ice emergency,
underline just how far the PLA has to go before it will
be able to reliably project overwhelming force beyond
its borders under challenging circumstances.
However, Tanner observes that the PLA’s participation
in MOOTW can be a valuable experience when
it comes to dealing with a Taiwan scenario in which
China successfully invaded and occupied Taiwan but
then faced serious urban unrest or even insurgency.
The PLA and PAP would presumably draw on the
tactics and techniques that they have developed to
prevent, contain, and suppress such unrest. In addition,
PLA commentators generally draw direct parallels
between the experience and lessons of their
MOOTW and their wartime mobilization and operations.
For example, PLA officer Yang Jinkui (杨金奎)
writes in the PLA Daily that the PLA should reflect on
what might happen if severe weather coincided with
war. Stating that the United States had used cloud-
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