China’s Asian Military Doctrine
By Bhaskar Roy
China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee is currently deliberating a new law
on “National Defence Mobilization”. The law envisages various emergent actions if the country’s
“state sovereignty, unification, territorial integrity or security were threatened”, and provides for
expropriation of civilian resources if required. The NPC Standing Committee, a version of China’s
Parliament, takes up a draft law for discussion only after this had received the sanction of the
Politbureau of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the country’s preeminent political body.
The brief statement on the law carried by the Global Times (April 21), a sister publication of the
CCP mouthpiece the People’s Daily, has very wide interpretation of conditions or threat that would
call upon the activation of the details in the law.
Appropriation of civilian resources in case of a war or the threat of a major war, is not new. The
civilian infrastructure like airports, ports, communication system have been incorporated in the
People Liberation Army’s (PLA) simulated and actual exercises in the past also. Engineering of
extreme nationalism or ultra-nationalism has been resorted to by the state against foreign powers,
especially the USA over the last decade where a situation of confrontation had arisen. It began with
the US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Kosovo in 1999, where US Missions in China were
attacked by the people.
The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) unleashed by Mao Zedong, included ultra-nationalism and
anti-foreigner indoctrination as part of it political agenda. The ten-year long upheaval put the
country back by 50 years, according some political assessments after the demise of Mao. But while
Mao’s Mantra was defence against historical foreign exploitation, the new doctrine appears as
offence against foreign countries through power diplomacy to establish Chinese supremacy in the
world, starting with Asia. The implication of such a policy on