As China's New Top Gun, Jiang Faces Test With Army

By RONE TEMPEST and MAGGIE FARLEY

Feb. 22, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

BEIJING —

People remember Chairman Mao Tse-tung for this famous dictum: “Power comes from the barrel of a gun.” Mostly forgotten, however, is the second part of the quotation: “The party commands the guns. It is unacceptable that the guns command the party.”

It is an axiom of modern Chinese history that controlling the nearly 3-million-strong People’s Liberation Army is key to holding power in the Communist state. As the first top Chinese leader with no military experience, President Jiang Zemin’s biggest challenge is keeping the respect of the military leadership after the death Wednesday of “paramount leader” Deng Xiaoping, who was revered by the top brass.

But today’s army is not the same one commanded by Deng and Mao during the country’s revolutionary era. These soldiers are no longer fish amid the sea of people, as Mao once had urged them to be.

U.S. officials and scholars who met a delegation of Chinese army colonels at a recent two-week seminar hosted by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government were impressed by the officers’ drive to turn the “peasants army” into a professional army.

“They exhibited tremendous confidence,” one participant said. “But what they wanted most was an army that they could be proud of. They showed disdain for the Russian military but great admiration for the Americans.”

But the Chinese military is also an army greatly distracted by its extensive business interests across China--from hair tonic to motorcycles.

One of the country’s largest and most successful pharmaceutical firms, which produces the popular “999” stomachache remedy, is owned by the Guangzhou military region. So are thousands of smaller enterprises, including hotels, toy factories, toilet-seat manufacturers, refrigerator plants and corrugated-paper production lines.

Experts estimate that more than 70% of the army’s considerable manufacturing base--once used exclusively to supply its own ranks--is now devoted to civilian production. The number of military businesses has increased from 10,000 or so in 1987 to more than 20,000 today.

The International Institute for Strategic Affairs in London contends that revenue from military business ventures makes up the bulk of the difference between the official $7-billion military budget and the estimated $32 billion the army actually spends.

The General Staff Headquarters itself has a 50% stake in some of Beijing’s plushest lodgings, such as the Palace Hotel in the city’s Wangfujing area; a general sits on the hotel’s board of directors.

And the night after Deng’s death, 600 young people--entertained by a caged male dancer in a caveman outfit--danced the night away at the Top Spot disco on the grounds of the army’s 3501 Military Uniform Factory in Beijing. The disco management leases the space, once a military movie theater, from the army.

The army’s participation in the business world has a corrupting influence that concerns many of the country’s top politicians.

“The PLA’s involvement in money-making activities,” said a 1995 report by Singapore’s Kim Eng Securities firm, “has led to growing corruption in the ranks. Thousands of military units have rushed into business in the past decade to make up shortfalls in the defense budget.”

In his effort to build ties with the military establishment, Jiang, chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission, has had to turn a blind eye to the army’s sometimes tawdry business dealings.

Military analysts contend that the businesses undermine the operational readiness of China’s forces at the same time that many officers, such as those who attended the seminar at Harvard, are striving to build a more professional military.

Jiang has worked for the past seven years to install his own people in key military posts. His biggest success came in September 1995, when he won approval from the Communist Party Central Committee to name two allies as vice chairs of the military commission.

One of the two, Defense Minister Gen. Chi Haotian, 68, is a devoted crony from the days when Jiang was mayor of Shanghai. The other, Zhang Wannian, 69, is a respected military commander who is one of the army’s strongest advocates for increased professionalism.

“After this move in 1995,” Hong Kong-based military expert Tai Ming Cheung said, “it has been clear that Jiang is more in control.”

Tai said Jiang’s influence over the military will increase even more when two old-timers who sit as vice chairmen on the commission, Adm. Liu Huaqing, 81, and Gen. Zhang Zhen, 83, are retired this fall at the 15th Party Congress.

Both Liu and Zhang were devoted to Deng and could be counted on to support Jiang only as long as Deng was alive.

Jiang also won points with the military when he took a tough stance against Taiwan when the island, which China considers to be part of its territory, staged its first presidential election last spring.

Jiang, whose initial instincts were reportedly less aggressive, let the military stage amphibious military exercises off the coast of Taiwan and launch unarmed ballistic missiles in the Taiwan Strait to try to intimidate voters who were in favor of Taiwan independence.

The incident terrified China’s neighbors and caused the Clinton administration to dispatch two aircraft carrier groups to the area.

As a result of these efforts, most military experts believe that Jiang has been able to establish a reasonable, if tenuous, accommodation with the military.

“Jiang Zemin is not in a position where he can dictate, direct or demand anything from the PLA,” a knowledgeable source said. “And they don’t have power over him. It’s a situation of mutual accommodation.

“Jiang has to negotiate and compromise. But there’s also no indication that the PLA is encroaching on his turf. Standing committee members don’t seem to be developing individual relationships with the military.”

Jiang will never have the military experience and revolutionary aura that won the army’s heart for Deng and Mao.

Increasingly, however, officers express their allegiance to the position of leadership rather than the personality of the leader.

In this respect, China’s revolutionary age, built on the charismatic, forceful personalities of leaders like Deng and Mao, is over.

But without personal allegiances, a dissatisfied military can also turn against its master.

In a recent essay in The Times, Rand Corp. military expert Michael D. Swaine presented a scenario in which a leadership battle developed in the wake of Deng’s death.

“The result could be an open and destabilizing struggle, especially if policy issues also exacerbate leadership contention,” wrote Swaine, an expert on the Chinese military. “Under such conditions, the military would probably intervene in leadership politics, precipitating a period of military rule.”

Jiang’s tough stand on Taiwan last spring was not enough to win him the status of a battle-toughened veteran.

Still, Jiang appears to move with more confidence in military circles.

In a November 1995 address at the National Defense University in Beijing, Jiang--speaking in his capacity as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party--delivered a reworked version of Mao’s famous quotation, saying, “The army must forever obey the party; [it must] make sure it is under the party’s absolute leadership and make sure the gun is forever in the hands of those loyal to the party.”

Tempest reported from Beijing and Farley from Shanghai.

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Jiang’s Military Connection

Jiang Zemin holds all three top positions in China--in the military, state and Communist Party. But, though he has tried to woo military leaders in policy decisions, he lacks the military experience that was a crucial part of Deng Xiaoping’s power base.

Chairman of Military Affairs Commission (commander of armed forces)

People’s Liberation Army

Defense budget: $7 billion*

Active duty: 2.9 million

Reservists: 1.2 million

ICBMs: 17

Medium-range missiles: 70-plus

Fighter/attack aircraft: 4,400

Bombers: 420

Submarines: 63

Destroyers/frigates: 54

* some estimates of expenditures range as high as $32 billion