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

to utilize the “material and technological foundation
of the nation” to help build a “great logistic support
capacity” to deter war and respond to crises. 92
Three of the additional goals that have been identified
for civil support in Chinese publications include
reducing costs, while improving logistics support capabilities,
as well as technology and management. A
fourth reason is to provide concealment for military
mobilization in civilian activities. 93
Although mobilization of civil assets plays a key
role, to date, no national level law governing mobilization
has yet been adopted, but several local mobilization
laws have been put into force at the provincial
and city level, which indicates that a system is taking
shape. The only national level mobilization law that
has been established was passed 4 years prior to the
17th CPC National Congress in 2003.This allowed for
the mobilization of civilian transportation assets. 94 It
permits the military to use abundant local transportation
support capabilities and resources to enhance
military transportation. 95
Civil support is still under development and may
be encountering some resistance on both sides. Nonetheless,
there have some accomplishments reported at
local levels with equipment support, for example.
In June 2009, a Xinjiang MD armored regiment
signed a “Highway Transportation Agreement for
Armored Equipment” and conducted the first emergency
call-out exercise using civilian flatbed trucks to
transport armored vehicles, 96 which allowed the unit
to augment its limited organic capability (two trucks)
to respond more quickly. In another example, in May
2009, another unit in Xinjiang MD received repair
parts from a distributer in Jinan, Shandong. Five commercial
trucks delivered the parts directly to designa-
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