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

fold extensive, changing local security environments.
With land borders of more than 22,000 kilometers
(km) and maritime borders exceeding 18,000 km, collectively,
touching on 20 neighboring states when continental
frontiers and countries on adjoining seas are
included, the PLA faces a potentially daunting task. 2
For the most part, these frontiers are now quiet and resolved,
but there are maritime resource and territorial
claims in the East and South China Seas that remain
unresolved, particularly the difficult extensive border
disagreements with India. Moreover, with the acquisition
and deployment of nuclear weapons by India and
Pakistan, together with the half dozen or so weapons
evidently held by the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea (DPRK), the nuclear weapons environment
surrounding China has become more complex. When
these developments are joined with the U.S. ballistic
missile defense (BMD) programs, China’s nuclear deterrence
strategy confronts an increasingly difficult
environment.
The point is that from Beijing’s perspective, no
matter how important it may be, China’s defense requirements
are not myopically focused on a potential
military conflict over Taiwan that would likely involve
U.S. military intervention. The demands on the
PLA are broader than this single contingency. Not the
least of these demands is created by the continuing
distrust of the U.S. strategic intent beyond potential
U.S. military intervention in a military confrontation
over Taiwan. There remains apprehension that American
strategic intent is to prevent China from achieving
what Beijing perceives as its proper role in Asia.
The current statements of the PLA’s responsibilities
in China’s security environment stem primarily
from Hu Jintao’s December 2004 speech. In the years
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