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

credibility of its strategic nuclear deterrent. For the
PLA, whether measured by conventional military
arms or strategic nuclear weapons, the United States
has far the most powerful and capable armed forces
accessible to the Asia-Pacific region. Accordingly,
whereas there is a renewed and lively debate among
Chinese scholars as to whether U.S. power is declining
because of its economic crisis and the invasions of
Iraq and Afghanistan, 67 for the PLA American military
superiority remains a continuing concern.
Maritime Asia: Japan.
The U.S. military posture in the Asia-Pacific region
is significantly enhanced by its security link with Japan.
The base facilities provided by Japan are essential
for the United States to sustain its forward deployed
forces. Japan thus presents a complex issue for China
and the PLA. On one hand, the U.S.-Japan security alliance
diminishes the possibility that Japan will emerge
as a powerful independent and potentially nucleararmed
military force. On the other, there is the experience
of Japan’s wars with China going back to the
late 19th century and the brutal behavior of Japan’s
occupying forces in World War II. This experience is
exacerbated by what Beijing views as Tokyo’s failure
to fully apologize for its past invasions and vicious
treatment of the Chinese people joined with Japanese
school textbooks that tend to whitewash this behavior.
Visits of Japanese officials to the Yasukuni shrine
honoring Japan’s war dead, but which also contains
the remains of 14 Class A war criminals from World
War II, serve to remind China of all its historical grievances.
Ongoing territorial and resource conflicts in the
East China Sea serve only to enhance China’s wari-
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