The Chinese military instrument constitutes in the Xi Jinping era the main means to perpetuate the Party's authority (CCP) and realize the cornerstones of the leader's "Chinese dream".
In the 2015 white paper we read:
- “the Chinese dream is to make the country strong. China Armed Forces take their dream of making the military strong as part of China Dream".
For the military, Beijing entrusts the task of defending the growing global interests, which see their plastic representation in the realization of the terrestrial and maritime silk route.
They are entrusted with the mission of defending and perpetuating the authority of the Party within national boundaries and translating the role of extra-regional power that China now recognizes.
The president of the PRC (People's Republic of China, ed), head of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) is the son of a Great March hero, and very aware that the realization of a prosperous and strong China passes not only through the creation a market economy that can continue to drive the globalization process (initiated by Deng Xiaoping), but also for highly efficient armed forces "globaly oriented".
Not surprisingly, in the XI Jinping thought of "socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era", Recently inscribed in the Constitution of the PRC (privilege granted in the past only to the Thought of Mao Zedong in 1945 and the" Theory "of Deng Xiaoping in 1997), there is no lack of references to military theorists and contemporary strategists.
This is the case of Colonel Liu Mingfu, who al Chinese dream he has dedicated a book to the 20101 published years later also in English, in which he advocates a necessary and urgent need for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) "military rise (...) that is defensive, peaceful, limited, necessary, important and urgent".
Or like Wang Jisi, rector of the Beijing School of International Studies, famous for his article published in the 2012 on Global Times, the main Chinese government paper, in which he theorized the need for "orient to the west", In Central and South Asia and in the Middle East, diplomatic and economic efforts. For the historical Euro-American vocation of the Dragon, and to avoid a possible confrontation with the USA, which with Obama had already, at the time, announced the "pivot to Asia".
The One Belt One Road (OBO) initiative, which is the essence of Xi's Chinese dream, can therefore also be thought of in relation to Wang's thought, in which a certain continuity line can be seen with the famous saying of Mao Zedong : "When the enemy advances, we retreat. When he backs away, we pursue him ".
For these reasons, in line with the importance given by the current Chinese political leadership, a profound process of doctrinal revision has been underway in the PLA, in which particular importance is attributed to the capacity of "win local conflicts, with a high degree of mechanization and computerization ", also to that of "power projection ".
Reason for which more and more resources are allocated to equipment and armaments (China is currently the world's second largest country for defense spending, which amounts to 5,6 of GDP, for a total of 228 billion USD in 20172).
In this light, too, the growing presence abroad of the Chinese military, who are increasingly employed in peacekeeping or peacekeeping missions under a UN mandate, anti-piracy, humanitarian assistance, bilateral joint training , not least, of anti-terrorism.
A presence that is functional on the one hand to "place" Beijing in a position of (international) rank in line with the consolidated status of extra-regional power, on the other hand to perfect, by training on the job, a projection capacity, which still tends to limit the foreign military engagement to some missions in central and southern Asia, and in East Africa.
For this purpose, an Office for Overseas Operations has been set up within the Interforces Command, which directly depends on the CMC3 (中央军委 联合 参谋部 作战 局 海外 行动 处) which coordinates all foreign military engagements, and which has certainly encouraged the increase of the Chinese contribution to the United Nations, passed from 1.868 military 2013 to 2.567 2017. Volumes, these, to be added to the additional 8 thousand units announced by Xi in the 2015 and the 300 contingent police officers created for UN missions.
Even the navy, in full transition from green (territorial waters) a Blue (deep water), participates in the profound renewal of the armed forces and their ability to project. From the 2008 takes part in the anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden and shortly, according to official statements in Beijing, will extend this commitment to the Gulf of Guinea, in support of the African states that face in that stretch of sea (and the impressive interests that Beijing has in the area).
In addition to these commitments, China has completed several evacuation operations for Italian nationals. In Libya, in addition to a first mission in the 2011 that allowed the evacuation of 35mila compatriots, there was a second in the 2014, which allowed the departure of additional 900 workers. Instead, around 600, Chinese citizens were evacuated from Yemen in the 2015.
Lastly, the efforts made by Beijing in the humanitarian field, which involved many men and assets in some Asian countries, also worthy of defining procedures, testing materials and accustoming staff to act in "joint and combined" contexts, are worthy of note. In the 2013, a hospital ship operated in the Philippines during the Typhoon Haiyan, and in the 2015 over 1000 soldiers were sent to Nepal after the earthquake that struck the country.
Last, but not least, between 2014 and 2017, Beijing's participation in search and rescue operations following the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines' MH 370 flight.
Numbers and data, those just illustrated, which indicate the will of China to create a well-defined "strategic depth" in line with its economic and geopolitical rise, and which lead us to suppose for the future, with the progressive development and consolidation of military projection capacity, a gradual and constant increase of Chinese soldiers operating abroad.
It is perhaps no coincidence, if the military base that was inaugurated last year in Djibouti, and which currently hosts 6 thousand Dragon military, is designed to contain 20 thousand.
(photo: Ministry of National Defense of the People's Republic of Chin / Marina Militare)
1 L. MINGFU, The China Dream, Harvard University Library, 2015
