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

curity objective than defending China’s legitimate interests.
Outside China, however, PLA modernization
programs create uneasiness among China’s neighbors
over the strategic objective behind them. It is not only
the increasing sophistication of the platforms and
weapons being acquired that create concern, but the
all-encompassing array of capabilities they include.
The PLA is acquiring space capabilities, sophisticated
strategic nuclear weapons, conventionally-armed ballistic
and cruise missiles, nuclear-powered attack and
ballistic missile submarines, advanced diesel-powered
submarines, advanced surface combatants, large
amphibious warfare ships, and air power composed
of increasingly capable combat aircraft supported by
a growing aerial tanker fleet and supporting aircraft.
PLA ground forces are undergoing comparable modernization
programs. Among those looking askance at
these programs is the United States.
Hu Jintao’s December 2004 revising the roles and
missions of the PLA was, in part, a response to this dilemma.
It seems evident that at the core of Hu Jintao’s
revision was concern that the PLA’s increasing operational
capabilities were becoming so disconcerting to
China’s neighbors that they threatened to undermine
the strategic objective of China’s foreign policy. China’s
security does require armed forces capable of effectively
defending China’s sovereignty and national
interests, which requires a PLA capable of deterring
war with China’s potential adversaries, defusing crises
should they erupt, and winning wars should they
occur. To the extent developing these capabilities
raised apprehensions among China’s neighbors and
further abroad, however, they jeopardized Beijing’s
primary strategic objective by creating the perception
of China as a threat. Hu Jintao’s emphasis on nonwar
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