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

of China (PRC) in late 1949, military logistics served as
disarticulated systems of independent and redundant
support provided by the services 3 and individualized
by units, commanders, and locations. China’s military
logistics system reached into local, nontraditional roles
and functions in civil production and resource exploitation.
These connections were strengthened during
the 1960-70s, when the PLA was directly embedded
into the civilian logistics infrastructure to secure and
manage distribution networks, commodities, and key
resources.
PLA logistics subsequently developed into bloated,
multiheaded systems of support. Nonetheless,
these proved adaptive and sufficient to support defensive
military operations at or near China’s border.
Logistics support for mobile offensive operations beyond
its borders, however, has been deficient. For examples,
China’s military logistics was inadequate and
ill-prepared to support exploitation of the retrograde
of United Nations (UN) forces below the 38th parallel
in 1950. Almost 30 years later, China’s military logistics
system proved inadequate to sustain offensive
military operations in Vietnam in 1979. Consequently,
China’s military forces were forced to fall back to positional
warfare—along the demilitarized zone, in the
case of Korea, and along China’s southern border during
operations in Vietnam.
After the Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist
Party’s (CCP) 11th National Congress in 1979, China’s
military began to withdraw from civil affairs. As a result,
the PLA’s logistics structure began a protracted
process of reduction and regularization in the 1980s.
Lucrative commercial opportunities and military
budget limitations, however, blunted military logistics
reform, as elements of the logistics system slipped
554