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More of the same from the PLA
During the cold weather disaster that engulfed southern China around the Spring Festival this year, an academic from the Chinese Air Force likened the disaster to being in a war. Vital infrastructure such as power lines and railways were down and the PLA was called to the rescue. The academic, Dai Xu, called for hardier infrastructure and a better response from the Military.
Following the tragedy that is the Sichuan earthquake, the PLA has once again been confronted with battle-like conditions – dealing with a large number of casualties and broken infrastructure. For sure, the earthquake has proven the undisputable strength of the PLA – it can deploy an incredibly large number of soldiers to a battlefield. Last time I looked, the PLA and People’s Armed Police had deployed a total of 100,000 to participate in emergency relief, which is a staggering figure considering the entire Australian Defence Force only has a total of 51,000 full-time personnel. However, the earthquake has also highlighted the weakness of the PLA – a lot of those soldiers are poorly equipped and it took over two days to access the epicenter of the earthquake. A lot of people will argue that no Military or emergency service could have accessed the rocky terrain of the epicenter, but I wonder whether the US, with its hi-tech helicopters and satellite-imaging technology, could have done better.
As I have discussed on this blog, an attempt to parachute into the area seems to have been a disaster. If I was Guo Boxiong (the Vice Chairman of the PLA’s Central Military Commission), I would have the entire paratrooper force disbanded immediately. If they cannot successfully parachute into a disaster area on home turf, then I think it would be highly unlikely that they would be successful during a war on enemy turf (i.e. the rocky terrain of Taiwan’s western coast).
Despite the slogans of modernisation and informationalisation having been the catch cries of the PLA for the last ten years, the Military is still characterised by its huge personnel rather than its cutting-edge technology. The fact that the PLA was reduced to marching its way to the quake epicenter is a sobering thought for those who are worried that the PLA will soon challenge the US Military. Certainly Dai Xu was right – natural disasters are preparation for war, and China and the PLA are still very much unprepared. |
Posted: 11:48 AM, 19/5/2008 in ChinaShare on Facebook |
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Untitled Comment
| Where was the US military when Katrina attacked? |
Posted by Anonymous at 12:08 AM, 20/5/2008 |
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Military and Natural Disaster
| Maybe the lack of other governmental and non-governmental organisations for disaster relief has put the military so much at the centre anyway. |
Posted by Anonymous at 5:14 PM, 28/5/2008 |
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Pentagon
| Pentagon will not like your blog. PLA needs to be described as threateaning as possible to get defense budget from Congress. You are the enemy of Pentagon. |
Posted by Anonymous at 4:25 AM, 17/6/2008 |
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