China Shifts Its Military Emphasis : Rapid Deployment Force Reflects Change in Policy

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army is developing a rapid deployment force capable of moving overseas on short notice, causing U.S. experts to analyze what the purpose of such a military unit might be.

The special force apparently reflects China’s new emphasis on demonstrating its military power to East Asian neighbors and on having the ability to fight smaller, limited wars abroad against regional enemies such as Vietnam, rather than on simply defending itself against an invasion by one of the superpowers.

The Chinese military has been giving new training to marines and paratroopers within the unit and has been seeking to develop ships and aircraft for rapid transport, according to U.S. officials.

Old Fears May Be Revived

Any shift by China toward a more aggressive military posture could complicate U.S. policy in Asia, which is based on the premise that China is a generally friendly nonaligned country. It also could revive old fears, particularly among the nations of Southeast Asia, that China might someday seek to dominate them.

For China, “the Americans have not been a threat for a while, and the Russians are no longer a serious threat,” said Thomas W. Robinson, a specialist on Chinese military affairs at the American Enterprise Institute. “For the PLA, the question is, who are your enemies now? The answer is the Vietnamese, and possibly the Indians or Taiwan, and in the long run, Japan.”

Paul H. B. Godwin, a China scholar at the Defense Department’s National War College here, said the Chinese military is now seeking to be able to “react quickly to events” as part of a general, continuing shift away from Mao Tse-tung’s old strategy of defeating opponents by tying them down in a long war inside Chinese territory.

Transition in Strategy Seen

“This is part of the transition away from ‘people’s war,’ ” said Godwin, referring to Mao’s military strategy. He said Chinese leaders recognize that for a regional war, “you don’t have time to mobilize the whole population, the whole economy, as you would for a major war, and the war might not be big enough to require it.”

The unit, identified as the “Fist Platoon,” was described as highly mobile but small, although the exact size was not given. Godwin said he understands that China is giving special training to one marine division of about 10,000 to 12,000 troops, but it is not certain that this unit is in fact the rapid deployment force.

Several analysts said that it would be misleading to equate China’s new unit with the U.S. Rapid Deployment Force, which was designed to move large numbers of American troops across large distances to places such as the Persian Gulf. They said that the Chinese unit, whose formation was disclosed this summer in the Liberation Army Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese armed forces, is relatively small and is capable of moving much shorter distances.

The analysts listed several possible reasons for Chinese military leaders to create the new force.

The first is the possibility that Beijing is preparing for battle against Vietnam in the Spratly Islands, the archipelago in the South China Sea more than 600 miles off China in which China, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines and Malaysia all have territorial claims.

On March 14, Chinese and Vietnamese warships exchanged fire in waters near the Spratlys. Some U.S. experts believe that China would like to establish a firm presence in these islands within the next few years, while Vietnam is still diplomatically isolated from the United States, Japan and the countries of Southeast Asia.

Speaking of China’s formation of a rapid deployment force, one U.S. official said that he thought it was related to the feud over the Spratlys. “They realize it’s a long way away from China, and they need to have the wherewithal to get there with what they need,” he said.

Another possible factor, experts say, is simply China’s desire to show that it has a modern military force and to keep pace with other nations.

“In (military) journals, they point out that the United States, the French, the Soviets all have these quick-reaction forces and that’s what they (the Chinese) have got to develop, too,” Godwin said.

A third possible reason for the rapid deployment force, Robinson suggested, is that Chinese military leaders need some new cause or justification to help get money for their defense budget, now that the threat of war with the Soviet Union seems to be fading.

“The point is, they are looking for new enemies to replace old ones,” he said.

The reports about the new unit in the official Chinese press described it as a force designed for regional combat and emergencies. Its existence “filled many blank areas in China’s parachute landing force,” one report said.

Last May, two months after China’s brief conflict with Vietnam in the Spratlys, a Hong Kong newspaper with close ties to Beijing reported that Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang had told Chinese military leaders that China must prepare to fight local wars.

Godwin said the origins of this new approach date back to 1985, when the Military Commission--the top-level Communist Party group headed by Deng Xiaoping that oversees the People’s Liberation Army--approved a change in China’s fundamental military strategy.

Chinese leaders decided then that they didn’t believe there would be any major wars until the 21st Century. Instead, the Chinese military was instructed to prepare for smaller wars on China’s periphery, said Godwin, who took part last year in exchanges with Chinese military leaders at the National Defense University in Beijing.

According to Robinson, China recently has shown both “evidence of intent” to project military force overseas, such as Zhao’s speech, and actual changes in the People’s Liberation Army that would point in the same direction.