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

operations was clearly designed to direct the PLA to
place greater emphasis on essentially all regional and
international roles that could ease the image of China’s
military power as a potential threat. This same
emphasis also served Beijing’s interest in that nonwar
operations assisted in projecting the image of China as
a responsible member of the international community
committed to ensuring global peace and stability.
Whether Hu Jintao’s redirection of the PLA will
have the results he seeks is questionable. China’s
military modernization programs are not designed to
create a military capability limited to the defense of
continental China and its territorial waters. They are
programs designed to create a military capability that,
although not global in reach, is certainly capable of
defending China’s interests against any challenge by
any military power, including the United States. Assuming
this assessment is correct, it raises quite complex
policy issues for the United States and its allies
and friends in the Asia-Pacific region. It also raises
questions Russia has to contemplate, but which this
chapter will not address.
Beijing has been quite unambiguous in its Defense
White Papers that China has strategic concerns directly
involving the United States, and that these concerns
go beyond Taiwan. Beijing’s underlying apprehension
is that the United States perceives China’s emergent
political, economic, and military strength as preparation
to supplant the United States in the Asia-Pacific
region and therefore seeks to restrain China’s growth.
The U.S. dilemma is that although the “United States
welcomes the rise of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous
China” that contributes to strengthening the “global
security architecture…,” 76 it so lacks confidence in understanding
Beijing’s strategic objectives in the Asia-
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