Are China’s hawks actually the PLA elite after all? [Revised]
Posted: December 5, 2013 Filed under: Academic debates, Fake PLA generals?, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PLA & PLAN | Tags: CCP-PLA, Chinese military, Chinese public opinion, civil-military relations, 罗援, Dai Xu, external propaganda, external propaganda experts, Fravel, General Liu Yuan, Han Xudong, hawkish faction, hawkish generals, Justine Zheng Ren, Liu Yawei, Liu Yazhou, Liu Yuan, military propaganda, National Defense Education, National Defense University, PLA hardliners, PLA hawks, political warfare, public opinion warfare, Swaine, Yawei Liu, Yellow Sea, 刘亚洲, 国防教育, 忧患意识, 戴旭 1 Comment
Dr Yawei Liu, of the Carter Center
[Updated 17 Dec: As with most things on here, this was bashed out hastily in the not-so-early hours of a morning, so i’ve taken the liberty of revising and adding some bits as i read through it two weeks later. In particular i felt the need to add in the various things i agree with from Liu and Ren’s excellent article, in addition to the criticisms i made.]
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In an upcoming Journal of Contemporary China article addressing the always fascinating question of PLA officers’ belligerent media statements, Yawei Liu and Justine Zheng Ren advance exactly the opposite case to the one made here earlier this year. They argue that military commentators’ media statements represent the “consensus” voice of the PLA, fighting to influence the CCP’s foreign policy.
Dr Liu, who directs the Carter Center’s China Program, happens to be the brother of General Liu Yazhou, most recently of Silent Contest fame. General Liu himself even features in the article, but references to his thinking are indirect (“General Liu seems to share the conviction that…”), presumably meaning that the two brothers have not talked over these work-related issues. Still, if anyone is in a position to knock the teeth out of my “propaganda, not policy” argument, Dr Liu should be the man.
To briefly recap, my argument was that, based on the backgrounds and affiliations of the main “hawks”, the belligerent military voices in the Chinese media are largely those of nominated propaganda/publicity experts (the two terms conflated as 宣传), whose job is to mould a positive image of the PLA among the domestic population and augment the military’s capabilities by shaping international audiences’ perceptions.[1]
“Silent Contest”: Liu Yazhou’s warmed-over McCarthyism
Posted: November 4, 2013 Filed under: PLA & PLAN | Tags: China-US relations, Chinese army propaganda, 较量无声, Liu Yazhou, military propaganda, National Defense University, PLA General Political Department, PLA hardliners, PLA leaked video, US-China relations, 刘亚洲, 国防大学 3 CommentsThe latest “leaked” video from the PLA, and its subsequent deletion from the Mainland Chinese internet, has the western China watching community grasping for explanations. Leftist battle-cry ahead of a rightist Third Plenum? Harbinger of an assertive turn in China’s US policy? A glimpse of what the PLA really thinks? My humble addition to this motley list is: powerful statement of self-importance by the CCP-PLA propaganda apparatus?
The video itself is really quite a masterpiece in my view, produced by a master of political warfare, PLA National Defense University Political Commissar Liu Yazhou. It details how America is waging a smokeless war of “political genetic modification” against China, utilizing the permeation (渗透) and “peaceful evolution” strategy that brought down the Soviet Union.
Propaganda as Policy? Explaining the PLA’s “Hawkish Faction” (Part Two)
Posted: August 13, 2013 Filed under: Academic debates, Diaoyu, Fake PLA generals?, Global Times, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PLA & PLAN, South China Sea, State media | Tags: Baidu Index, China-Philippines relations, Chinese foreign policy, Chinese media, Chinese military, Chinese nationalism, Chinese public opinion, 环球网, 环球时报, 罗援, Dai Xu, deterrence, Diaoyu, Diaoyu Islands, 钓鱼岛, 鹰派, 黄岩岛, Global Times, informatized warfare, Jamestown Foundation, Luo Yuan, military propaganda, PLA hawks, propaganda, scarborough shoal, Senkaku, Senkaku Islands, Sino-Japanese relations, south china sea, 忧患意识, 戴旭 3 Comments
Here is Part 2 on the PLA hawkish faction from China Brief, with added links to sources, and a couple of graphs from the utterly awesome Baidu Index (big hat tip to Kaiser Kuo).
I’d also like to add my thanks to Xuan Cheng, John Garnaut, James Barker, Mark Stokes and Taylor Fravel for discussions and tips on this topic. They don’t necessarily agree with the content of the article.
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Propaganda as Policy? Explaining the PLA’s “Hawkish Faction” (Part Two)
Publication: China Brief Volume: 13 Issue: 16
August 9, 2013
By: Andrew Chubb
Rise of the hawks: searches for “China hawkish faction” by logged-in Baidu users since 2008. I’m requesting further info from Baidu regarding the extremely low pre-2010 numbers. One point that can be made with confidence is that user interest in the “Chinese hawkish faction” peaked during the Scarborough Shoal and (especially) Diaoyu Islands crises.
If outspoken Chinese military officers are, as Part One suggested, neither irrelevant loudmouths, nor factional warriors, nor yet the voice of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on foreign policy, and are instead experts in the PLA-CCP propaganda system, then what might explain the bad publicity they often generate for China? This article explores how the activities of China’s military hawks may contribute to the regime’s domestic and international goals. On a general level, the very appearance of a hawkish faction—the “opera” that Luo Yuan has described—serves the domestic purposes of promoting national unity (Global Times, May 4). By amplifying threat awareness and countering perceived Western plots to permeate the psyche of the Chinese populace and army, the “hawks” direct public dissatisfaction with the policy status quo away from the system as a whole.
In specific crises, such as the standoff at Scarborough Shoal last year or in the wake of the Diaoyu Islands purchase, hard-line remarks from uniformed commentators serve to rally domestic public opinion behind the prospect of military action, instil confidence in the PLA’s willingness to fight over the issue and deter China’s adversary. By amplifying the possibility of otherwise irrational Chinese military action and inevitable escalation should Beijing’s actions be interfered with, they have contributed to a thus-far successful effort to convince the Philippines and Japan to accept the new status quo around Scarborough Shoal and the Diaoyu Islands.
Propaganda, Not Policy: Explaining the PLA’s “Hawkish Faction” (Part One)
Posted: July 29, 2013 Filed under: Academic debates, Diaoyu, Global Times, PLA & PLAN, PLA Daily, TV | Tags: CCTV, China Brief, Chinese foreign policy, Chinese military, civil-military relations, 罗援, 罗援少将, Dai Xu, Diaoyu Islands, external propaganda experts, Han Xudong, hawkish faction, Jamestown Foundation, Luo Yuan, military political work, military propaganda, Peng Guangqian, PLA hawks, PLA-CCP relations, propaganda, south china sea, Susan Shirk, Wang Jisi, Yin Zhuo, Zhang Zhaozhong, 军事对外宣传, 军事政治工作, 外宣, 尹卓, 张召忠, 彭光谦, 戴旭 8 Comments
Latest Jamestown China Brief piece, with links to sources:
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Propaganda, Not Policy: Explaining the PLA’s “Hawkish Faction” (Part One)
By Andrew Chubb
The regular appearance in the Chinese media of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) figures calling for aggressive foreign policy causes controversy and confusion among foreign observers. The most sensational remarks usually are made by academics at PLA institutions. Foreign media routinely pick up sensational quotes from these military officers—such as Major General Luo Yuan’s repeated suggestion for declaring the Diaoyu Islands a Chinese military target range or Rear Admiral Zhang Zhaozhong’s recent call for a blockade of Philippine outposts in the Spratly Islands (Beijing TV/Huanqiu Wang, May 27)—and attribute them to senior military leaders, as their ranks seem to suggest (New York Times, August 20, 2012; TIME, Februrary 20; Tea Leaf Nation, February 25; South China Morning Post, March 6; Reuters, March 17). Operational commanders, however, seldom comment in public on policy issues. Prominent foreign policy analyst Wang Jisi has publicly complained about “reckless statements, made with no official authorization” which had “created a great deal of confusion” (Asian Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2012). In April, recently-retired deputy military region commander Wang Hongguang wrote military pundits had “misled the audience” and caused “interference with our high-level policy decision-making and deployments” (Global Times, April 20). This two-part series assesses who these outspoken PLA officers represent and the implications of their hawkish statements through an evaluation of their backgrounds, affiliations and statements on their work.
Debate about belligerent public remarks from military personnel often surrounds the extent to which they might represent the voice of hawkish PLA constituencies, pressuring the leadership to adopt more aggressive policies. Some analysts tend to dismiss such bluster as largely irrelevant on the basis that military media pundits have no operational military authority, despite their high rank. Others, however, emphasize how continued outspokenness by military figures presupposes high-level party or military support, and that they thus give voice to behind-the-scenes political struggles. A third view proposes that the hawks are the voice of the PLA as an institution, pushing the military’s policy preferences [1]. Analysis of scattered biographical information on the most prominent hawkish PLA media commentators, plus comments regarding their own work, suggests each perspective is partially right. None is a general in a conventional military sense, yet they are far from irrelevant. Their backgrounds, affiliations and positions, however, indicate their role probably has more to do with the regime’s domestic and international propaganda work objectives than political debates.
southseaconversations 讨论南海 
“Public opinion warfare to smear military commentators”: my plot to contain China exposed
Posted: August 1, 2013 | Author: Andrew Chubb | Filed under: Academic debates, Comment threads, Fake PLA generals?, Global Times, PLA & PLAN, Weibo | Tags: Chinese internet, Chinese military, Chinese nationalism, Chinese news portals, 环球网, 环球时报, 罗援, Dai Xu, external propaganda experts, 舆论战, 鹰派, Global Times, hawkish faction, hawkish generals, Huanqiu, military propaganda, Netease, PLA hawks, PRC news portals, propaganda, public opinion warfare, Sohu, 张召忠, 戴旭 | 6 CommentsChina.com special topic: Are the PLA’s hawkish statements just propaganda?
In my first foray into mainland China’s propaganda system since winning a “second-class prize” in a television language competition heavily rigged in my favour, the previous post (written for the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief) was picked up by mainland online media on Tuesday, and run under headlines including:
I apologize in advance for the infelicitousness of this post, but i am a student and this is a blog, so can’t take these things too seriously 😉
My personal favourite headline was:
Since i now speak for “America” (or is it that i am America?), it is high time i actually went there.
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