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

Years Number of Foreign Number of Foreign Number of Foreign
Countries Visited Countries that Sent
Delegations to China
Delegations Hosted
2001-02 60 60 90
2003-04 60 70 130
2005-06 60 90 Not Identified
2007-08 40 60 Not Identified
Figure 1. PLA High-Level Exchanges: 2001-08.
The decreased number of exchanges in 2007-08 does
not necessarily represent a downswing in overall,
long-term engagement. A possible explanation for
the decrease in exchanges during the 2007-08 period
is that the military’s (and China’s) attention was focused
on the 2007 17th Party Congress, which resulted
in several military leadership changes, and the 2008
Olympics. Other factors could have been the diversion
of resources to responding to natural disasters, such
as the snowstorms in southern China and the Sichuan
earthquake, and dealing with civil unrest in Tibet.
A review of senior PLA officer visits abroad indicates
that those senior PLA officers who travel abroad
do so an average of once per year. In terms of the number
of trips abroad by a single officer, only the Minister
of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff (CGS)
have averaged more than one trip abroad per year.
The Minister of Defense averages two to three trips
annually, one of which is usually spent participating
in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO’s)
annual Defense Minister’s Conference (see Appendix
A). 38 Most other senior officers did not travel abroad
each year or traveled only once per year (see Appendix
B).
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