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

the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
Regional Forum (ARF), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO). Counterterrorism had also formally
entered the PLA portfolio in the post-September 11,
2001 (9/11) era after many years of such operations in
Tibet and Xinjiang.
Hu Jintao’s speech evidently sought to extend and
integrate these components into a cohesive image of
how PLA missions could be revised to contribute to
a national security strategy reflecting China’s increasing
involvement in world affairs. Moreover, under Hu
Jintao’s direction, nontraditional and nonwar missions
were becoming of growing importance. Certainly the
most noticed of China’s nonwar missions is the late
2008 decision dispatching a small PLA Navy (PLAN)
flotilla to contribute to counterpiracy operations in the
Gulf of Aden. This is the furthest from China’s shores
the PLAN has ever conducted a sustained operation.
Even as articles dissecting the demands placed
on the armed forces by the requirement to effectively
conduct diversified military tasks were spun out,
there was also a call from military publications for the
PLA to remain focused on its “core” military capability—warfighting.
The PLA’s core military role is seen
as “the capacity to win local wars under informatized
conditions.” 6 The concern expressed was straightforward.
As the PLA prepared for an increasing number
of diverse military tasks, it was too easy to “relax core
military capacity building and misread the relationship
between core military capacity and other capabilities.”
7 Whereas the PLA does have to participate
in international and regional security cooperation,
UNPKO, international counterterrorism, international
humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and make other con-
49