Peter Wood

Frank Miller

John Costello

Kenneth Allen

Joel Wuthnow

Joe McReynolds

Matt Bruzzese

Morgan Clemens

Rick Gunnell

Brian Lafferty

Richard Laszok

Erin Richter

Jordan Shaw

Brian Waidelich

This reference volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the organizational structure of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party. Across 13 chapters, leading scholars and analysts provide an encyclopedic examination of the PLA, supported by detailed tables, charts, and images. As the third installment in the People's Liberation Army as Organization series, this volume expands upon and updates the foundational research of Volumes 1.0 (2002) and 2.0 (2018). It is the only volume in the series to comprehensively document the PLA following the sweeping structural reforms initiated in 2015 and continuing through 2024, making it an indispensable resource for policymakers, military analysts, and researchers seeking to understand China's evolving military structure today.

The People's Liberation Army As Organization Volume 3.0

"No longer confined to China's land territory or its near abroad, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is conducting increasingly complex operations farther and farther from China's continental borders. Within Asia, the PLA now regularly operates into the far reaches of the South China Sea and deep into the Western Pacific, enforcing China's territorial claims and preparing to counter U.S. intervention in a regional conflict. Beyond Asia, the PLA is present on the ground, at sea, or in military exercises with foreign partners across the Indian Ocean and into the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Foreign militaries now regularly encounter the PLA, whether in tense incidents or friendly contacts, on their home turf and in the global commons. Drawn from a 2019 conference jointly organized by NDU, the RAND Corporation, and Taiwan's Council on Advanced Policy Studies, The PLA Beyond Borders surveys the dimensions of Chinese operations within the Indo-Pacific region and globally. The international contributors look both at the underlying enablers of these activities, including expeditionary capabilities and logistics, command and control, and ISR systems, as well as new and evolving operational concepts and operational patterns. Employing different analytic lenses, they portray a reformed PLA accelerating the pace of its overseas operations and increasing its modernization not only in the traditional domains, but also in space and cyber." -- Publisher's description.

Chinese Military Operations in Regional and Global Context

The PLA Beyond Borders

Phillip Charles Saunders

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has embarked on its most wide-ranging and ambitious restructuring since 1949, including major changes to most of its key organizations. The restructuring reflects the desire to strengthen PLA joint operation capabilities- on land, sea, in the air, and in the space and cyber domains. The reforms could result in a more adept joint warfighting force, though the PLA will continue to face a number of key hurdles to effective joint operations, Several potential actions would indicate that the PLA is overcoming obstacles to a stronger joint operations capability. The reforms are also intended to increase Chairman Xi Jinping's control over the PLA and to reinvigorate Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organs within the military. Xi Jinping's ability to push through reforms indicates that he has more authority over the PLA than his recent predecessors. The restructuring could create new opportunities for U.S.-China military contacts.

Chinese Military Reform in the Age of Xi Jinping: Drivers, Challenges, and Implications

China has emerged in the 21st century as a sophisticated, and sometimes contentious, actor in the United Nations Security Council. This is evident in a range of issues, from negotiations on Iran's nuclear program to efforts to bring peace to Darfur. Yet China's role as a veto-holding member of the Council has been left unexamined. How does it formulate its positions? What interests does it seek to protect? How can the international community encourage China to be a contributor, and not a spoiler? This book is the first to address China's role and influence in the Security Council. It develops a picture of a state struggling to find a way between the need to protect its stakes in a number of 'rogue regimes', on one hand, and its image as a responsible rising power on the world stage, on the other. Negotiating this careful balancing act has mixed implications, and means that whilst China can be a useful ally in collective security, it also faces serious constraints. Providing a window not only into China's behaviour, but into the complex world of decision-making at the UNSC in general, the book covers a number of important cases, including North Korea, Iran, Darfur, Burma, Zimbabwe, Libya and Syria. Drawing on extensive interviews with participants from China, the US and elsewhere, this book considers not only how the world affects China, but how China impacts the world through its behaviour in a key international institution. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars working in the fields of Chinese politics and Chinese international relations, as well as politics, international relations, international institutions and diplomacy more broadly.

Beyond the Veto

Chinese Diplomacy and the UN Security Council

Joel Wuthnow

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