The Military & Political Succession in China: Leadership, Institutions, Beliefs
Abstract
After forty years of supposed civilian party rule and extensive functional specialization of elites, the military remains the ultimate foundation for and arbiter of power among contending factions atop the Chinese leadership system. This is especially true today given the highly unstable and unprecedented conditions confronting China, marked by widespread social discontent and extremely low party prestige, a weak, divided, and unpopular leadership, and the imminent passing of the original revolutionary generation of elder Chinese powerholders. All these factors, when combined with the historical centrality of Chinese military power and the legacy of communist rule by a fused party-army political structure, suggest that it is virtually impossible to assess the dynamics of China's coming succession struggle and China's future political evolution without fully analyzing the role of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in elite politics. This Report does not claim to provide a definitive analysis of this topic. Rather, it constitutes a first step toward improving our understanding of the PLA's potential role in leadership conflict. The intent is to delineate more clearly those features of the Chinese politico-military system most relevant to military involvement in elite politics, to gain a better understanding of the variables influencing such involvement and the range and manner of their interaction, and thus to provide a basis for evaluating the general likelihood of different scenarios of possible military intervention in a future succession struggle. The Report systematically examines three major components of China's politico-military system: - Party-military leadership - Military organizations - Military beliefs and attitudes toward political involvement On the basis of this analysis, the Report delineates twenty-three general and specific features of the Chinese politico-military system relevant to military involvement in elite politics
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA595926
Entities
People
- Michael D. Swaine
Organizations
- RAND Corporation