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In March 1956, the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party held an enlarged meeting that gathered together senior military officers. When the meeting concluded, the CMC issued China’s first national military strategy, which outlined how to counter a US invasion through a strategy of forward defense. The strategy envisioned a transition from a military composed mostly of lightly armed infantry units to one based on partial mechanization able to conduct combined arms operations, supported by air and naval forces, to defeat the invasion.

The adoption of the 1956 strategic guideline is puzzling for several reasons. To start, the new strategy was issued during what Chinese leaders perceived to be a relatively stable security environment. Although China remained locked in a confrontation with the United States in East Asia, China did not expect a war to occur for at least a decade or more. Consistent with such perceptions, defense spending as a share of the national budget declined steadily during this period.

In addition, despite China’s alliance with the Soviet Union, China did not seek to emulate the military strategy of its senior security partner. The 1956 strategic guideline was adopted during the height of Chinese-Soviet military cooperation, when thousands of Soviet military advisors and technical experts were assisting the PLA in its modernization effort. The Soviet Union also provided enough weapons and equipment to arm more than half of the PLA’s infantry divisions, as well as blueprints, technologies, and factories for China’s nascent defense industries. As such, China presents a “most likely” case for arguments about major military change based on the mechanism of emulation. Nevertheless, China did not emulate the Soviet strategy. Instead, China rejected the basic elements of the Soviet approach, including its emphasis on first strikes and preemption. By 1958, the CMC decided to downplay the Soviet model and only adopt selected components linked with weapons technologies and combined arms tactics.

As the first military strategy adopted after 1949, the 1956 strategic guideline represents a watershed in the PLA’s history. The new strategy demonstrates that China’s dedication to building a modern military began much earlier than is commonly believed in most studies of the PLA, which tends to view this period through the lens of Mao Zedong’s “people’s war.” 1 The focus on combined arms operations, in fits and starts, continued into the Cultural Revolution, even after military ranks were abolished and Mao started to shift China’s military strategy back to “luring the enemy in deep” from the civil war. Some of the core ideas of the 1956 strategy resurfaced when the PLA began to consider how best to counter the Soviet threat from the north in the late 1970s. Likewise, when drafting China’s 1993 strategy, General Zhang Zhen used the 1956 strategy as a reference. 2 Thus, a complete understanding of China’s approach to military strategy begins with the 1956 strategic guideline.

As the PRC’s first military strategy, the external motivations for formulating it are likely overdetermined. China would need to adopt a military strategy at some point after 1949 and, furthermore, was locked in a hostile relationship with the United States. Nevertheless, within that context, the principal motivation was a perception of a significant shift in the operational conduct of warfare. During the early 1950s, China sought not only to absorb the lessons from World War II and the Korean War, but it also considered the implications of the nuclear revolution for conventional operations. Senior military officers also led the formulation of the 1956 strategy with little or no input from top party leaders. Such military-led change was possible because of the unprecedented unity within the CCP in the early to mid-1950s, which insulated the military from party politics and gave it substantial autonomy for managing military affairs.

This chapter unfolds as follows. The first section demonstrates that the strategy adopted in 1956 reflected a major change in China’s approach to military strategy, especially when contrasted with the approaches used in various phases of the civil war discussed in the previous chapter. The next two sections highlight the factors that explain the adoption of the guideline: perceptions of a shift in the conduct of warfare, and party unity. The fourth section reviews the initial reforms implemented to reorganize the PLA in the early 1950s, while the fifth section examines the adoption of the new strategy in 1956. The sixth section considers the main alternative explanation: that China sought to copy or emulate the Soviet strategy. The last section reviews the adoption of a new strategic guideline in 1960, after Lin Biao assumed leadership of military affairs following the purge of Peng Dehuai at the Lushan Conference, to argue that it represents only a minor change to the 1956 strategy .

The 1956 strategic guideline represents the first of three major changes in China’s military strategy since 1949. Called the “strategic guideline for defending the motherland,” it outlined a strategy of forward defense of China’s coastal areas during the first six months of a US invasion. This strategy emphasized positional warfare and downplayed mobile and guerrilla warfare, which had been much more prominent in the civil war. Countering a US invasion would require the PLA to conduct combined arms operations, coordinating the actions of garrison and maneuver forces, along with air and naval forces, all under nuclear conditions.

In the 1956 strategic guideline, the “basis of preparations for military struggle” was a surprise attack by a technologically and materially stronger adversary: the United States. With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the United States became China’s primary adversary. After a stalemate was reached on the Korean Peninsula, China began to consider the possibility of a US amphibious assault against the mainland, most likely on the Liaodong or Shandong peninsulas in the northeast. However, neither senior military officers nor top party leaders believed that an attack was imminent. This defense planning scenario was first identified in 1952 during the Korean War and emphasized again in March 1955, based on Mao’s assessment of growing US power in the region after it established a network of alliances and announced the doctrine of “massive retaliation” in 1954. Because the 1956 strategic guideline identified the United States as China’s “strategic opponent,” the new strategy focused on how to fight an adversary with technologically superior capabilities. The guideline also emphasized how to fight “under nuclear conditions,” as it was almost universally assumed than any US attack would begin with the use of nuclear weapons. 3

The 1956 strategy was a strategy of strategic defense. It described how China would respond once the United States had initiated a conflict and attacked Chinese territory. The core of the 1956 strategy was a forward defense of China’s coastal areas, including potential invasion routes in the north, along with the defense of China’s industrial and economic areas in and around Shanghai. The strategy stated that the PLA, if attacked, “must be able to respond immediately with a strong counterattack and stop the enemy’s offensive in predetermined fortified areas.” Peng summarized “the basic content of our army’s strategic guideline of active defense” as “stabilize the front, smash the enemy’s plan for rapid attack and victory, and compel the enemy to engage in protracted operations with our military so that we can gradually strip them of their strategic initiative and have it gradually transferred to our military—that is, transitioning from strategic defense to strategic offense.” 4

A key component of any strategic guideline is the identification of the “form of operations” that the PLA should be prepared to conduct in the future. The 1956 guideline departed from the PLA’s past emphasis on using lightly armed infantry units to engage in mobile warfare on fluid fronts. Instead, according to Peng, the strategy “should be a fusion of positional and mobile warfare: that is, linking together mobile offensive warfare with positional defensive warfare.” 5 This form of operations significantly downplayed mobile and guerrilla warfare that had been prominent in the Chinese civil war and marked a watershed in the PLA’s approach to operations.

The “basic guiding thought for operations” is the way in which positional and mobile warfare would be combined. Garrison forces would defend permanent fortifications along the coast and on coastal islands to slow down the US attack and pin down US forces by holding their positions. Afterward, maneuver units would be deployed with the aim of destroying US forces. 6 The PLA would only engage in guerrilla operations in territory that was lost in the initial attack. The goal was to withstand an assault for three to six months, or even longer, denying the United States a quick victory, overextending its supply lines, and buying time for a full-scale mobilization to destroy and expel its forces. 7

After the adoption of the 1956 strategic guideline, the PLA drafted combat regulations to describe how it would conduct combined arms operations. Starting in 1950, the PLA had used translated copies of Soviet army field manuals in its military academies and schools. The new strategy, however, called for developing China’s own military science. In 1958, the CMC decided to draft combat regulations based on the PLA’s own combat experience in addition to the practices of foreign militaries. The drafting of regulations began in late 1958. In May 1961, the CMC issued the first two sets of regulations: General Combat Regulations for a Combined Army ( hecheng jundui zhandou tiaoling gaize ) and Infantry Combat Regulations ( bubing zhandou tiaoling ). By 1965, regulations for the air force and navy as well as artillery, communications, chemical defense, engineering, and railway units were issued by the services and branches. 8 The regulations issued during this period subsequently became known as the “first generation” of combat regulations. 9

The 1956 strategic guideline envisioned creating a combined force (hecheng jundui ) of various services and branches. The strategy emphasized the development of the ground forces and the air force over the navy. The ground forces were seen as the bulwark of China’s defense, while the air force would defend against the initial US bombing campaigns and protect the ground forces. Within the ground forces, the strategy sought to increase the proportion of artillery, as well as armored, anti-tank, and air defense units, along with improved mechanization. The navy was secondary, though still important, focusing on coastal defense (jin’an fangyu ) through the development of torpedo boats and submarines. 10

To implement the new strategy, the PLA’s force structure changed significantly between 1950 and 1958. Personnel in the air force and navy grew to constitute 12.2 percent and 5.8 percent of the PLA, respectively. Likewise, personnel in artillery and armored units under the CMC constituted 4.8 and 2.3 percent of the force. Over the same time frame, the organization of infantry divisions also changed to reflect the shift to combined arms. The share of personnel in infantry units declined from 61.1 percent in 1950 to 42.3 percent in 1958, while troops in artillery units increased from 20.4 to 31.9 percent and engineering troops grew from 1.6 percent to 4.4 percent. In 1958, armored and chemical defense units, which did not exist in 1950, made up 4.7 and 1.2 percent. 11

The 1956 guideline reaffirmed an earlier decision to cap the total size of the force at 3.5 million, down from over 6 million during the height of the Korean War. Downsizing was required to limit the burden of defense expenditure on the state as it embarked on the Second Five-Year Plan and to emphasize quality over quantity in the force itself. Between 1956 and 1958, the size of the force was further reduced to roughly 2.4 million. The proportion of the national budget devoted to defense shrunk from 34.2 percent to just over 12 percent. 12

Consistent with the emphasis on combined arms operations, the PLA adjusted its approach to training. The PLA’s first training program was drafted in 1957 and implemented in provisional form in January 1958. The Liberation Army Daily described the purpose of the program as “learning combat skills for modern conditions [to] deal with emergencies at any time.” Consistent with the 1956 strategy, the new program offered a summary of Chinese views of modern warfare at the time and stated that future training should “continue to raise modern military skills and learn combined arms operations under nuclear, chemical, missile and other complicated conditions.” 13

Before and after the adoption of the 1956 guideline, the PLA established a professional military education system. One requirement of Peng’s strategy was for skilled officers to command and direct combined arms operations along with technically proficient soldiers to operate the new types of weapons and equipment that would be used by individual units. In 1957, the PLA established the Advanced Military Academy ( gaodeng junshi xueyuan ) to train senior officers in the principles and techniques of modern command and the operational level of war. Other academies established during this period include the Military Academy, the Political Academy, and the Logistics Academy. 14 In March 1958, the Academy of Military Science (AMS) was founded, with Marshal Ye Jianying as its first president. The appointment of one of the ten great marshals from the revolutionary war as president underscored the importance that was attached to developing China’s military science.

China also began to conduct large-scale military exercises involving different services and combat arms. Most of these were demonstration exercises to highlight various aspects of modern warfare and operations that China should be able to conduct. Before the guideline was established, the first such exercise, which simulated a campaign to counter an amphibious assault, was held on the Liaodong Peninsula. The exercises involved units from each of the services and a total of 68,000 soldiers. 15 Every year thereafter, the General Staff Department (GSD) organized combined arms exercises, including joint exercises with Soviet and North Korean forces in 1957 and a large-scale simulation of an amphibious landing in May 1959. 16

In the early to mid-1950s, three events shaped China’s perceptions of shifts in the operational conduct of warfare: World War II, the Korean War, and the nuclear revolution. As a late military modernizer, China’s perspective of these events was shaped by the military it possessed at the end of the Chinese civil war. When the PRC was founded in 1949, the PLA included more than five million soldiers, almost all of which were light infantry. The PLA lacked services such as a navy and air force and only a small percentage of the ground forces were in combat arms such as artillery or armored units. The ground forces had no tradition of combined arms operations that required coordinating action among different combat arms. In the civil war, as discussed in chapter 2 , command had also been decentralized. Commanders of the various field armies were given wide latitude when planning and conducting operations within their area of operations as well as for recruiting, organizing, and training their soldiers.

Given the PLA’s limited capabilities and broad responsibility for defending the newly established state, it is perhaps not surprising that military leaders would study the prevailing conduct of warfare as they considered how to defend their new country. In a speech on November 2, 1950, Su Yu, the deputy chief of staff and a famous commander during the civil war, highlighted four characteristics of modern war, drawing heavily on World War II. a Importantly, Su’s speech reflects views about the conduct of warfare before Chinese and US forces clashed on the Korean Peninsula only a few weeks later. Su highlighted the multiple dimensions of warfare on and under the sea, on land and underground, on the front line and in now-vulnerable rear areas. Warfare was a “competition of high technology” on the battlefield in which opponents would seek to use their most advanced weapons. Another key characteristic Su stressed was the fast pace of modern war, facilitated by mechanization, which increased the speed of operations and consumption of supplies. Finally, the speed of operations also underscored the importance of coordination among combat arms. 17 As Su told his audience, “According to these characteristics, we must grasp and master modernization.” 18

China’s senior military officers gained additional insight into modern warfare by fighting the world’s most advanced military on the Korean Peninsula. China’s experience during the Korean War affirmed the assessment of shifts in the conduct of warfare as revealed in World War II. According to China’s official history of the Korean War, the conflict “greatly pushed forward the development of China’s military art and powerfully accelerated China’s military transformation in the 1950s.” 19 The transformations influenced by the Korean War highlighted by the study included: from only infantry operations to joint operations with multiple services and branches; from ground operations to three-dimensional ( liti ) operations (i.e., land, air, and sea); from mobile warfare to mobile warfare and positional warfare; and from front-line operations to total operations in the front and rear, among others. 20

Yet these were not the only lessons that China drew from its experience on the Korean Peninsula. Although the war was fought to a stalemate along the thirty-eighth parallel, it revealed how destructive contemporary warfare could be, especially for the weaker side. Chinese casualty figures are only estimates, but ten Chinese soldiers probably perished for every one American soldier, and an equal number of American and Chinese soldiers were wounded. 21 In addition to the destructiveness of modern war, the PLA also learned that logistics and supply problems constrained the scope and extent of offensive operations that it could conduct. Because Chinese forces were not mechanized and traveled mostly on foot, they could not easily exploit any breakthroughs that occurred on the battlefield. Similarly, despite the efforts of railway and air defense troops to build, maintain, and defend supply lines, transportation and supply problems limited the PLA’s ability to sustain offensive operations, as it would quickly exhaust its supplies. 22 As Peng Dehuai stated in December 1953, “The experience of the Korean War proves that in modern war if there is no guarantee of ample supply of materiel from the rear, war is impossible to conduct.” 23 Similarly, the lack of sufficient airpower and the inability to maintain even localized air superiority was seen as perhaps the greatest challenge faced by Chinese forces, as it played a key role in the high number of casualties and vulnerability of supply lines to disruption. 24

Nevertheless, China during the Korean War developed methods for overcoming its own technological inferiority. First, although the United States was stronger, the PLA could win individual battles by attacking what were perceived as weak points that American forces could not address. These included the limited utility of airpower at night and a desire by American forces to maintain physical contact with rear areas, which led the PLA to conduct operations at night, engage in close-quarters combat, and seek to separate smaller units from larger ones. 25 Second, following the shift to negotiations and to defending the territory under its control, the PLA reduced to some degree its vulnerability to airpower and artillery through the use of extensive tunnels and defensive fortifications on the rough and hilly terrain around the thirty-eighth parallel. 26 These defensive systems would be used again as China prepared to counter a US invasion in the 1950s.

China paid more attention to the nuclear revolution after US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles articulated the doctrine of massive retaliation in 1954. Most Chinese generals believed that nuclear weapons would be used in strategic bombing campaigns at the start of a war. When combined with the advent of jet propulsion, Su Yu described future war in 1955 as starting with an “atomic blitz” ( yuanzi shanji ) in which aircraft would be used to bomb industrial centers, cities, and military targets. 27 Nuclear weapons also further increased the vulnerability of rear areas. Nevertheless, senior military officers such as Su Yu and Ye Jianying maintained that infantry units would remain central because nuclear weapons could not be used to occupy territory. 28 The advent of nuclear weapons also underscored the importance of airpower, to defend against nuclear strikes, and the importance of mechanization, to facilitate a rapid response capability and provide added protection of forces on the nuclear battlefield. 29

Remarkable and perhaps unsurpassed unity within the CCP created favorable conditions for military-led change in the 1950s. As Frederick Teiwes has demonstrated, one indicator of this unity was the continuity of membership of the CCP’s Central Committee, as all members elected in 1945 were reelected in 1956 (along with new members). Similarly, little change in the composition of the Politburo occurred. 30 Dramatic changes in the composition of either leadership body would have signaled much greater conflict within the party. Another indicator of unity is the relative absence of purges, in contrast to the Soviet system under Stalin and China during the Cultural Revolution. Only two senior party leaders were purged before the 1959 Lushan Conference: Gao Gang and Rao Shushi, in 1954. Moreover, their purge did not threaten unity within the party. Gao and Rao, who sought to remove Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai as top leaders of the party and state bureaucracies, respectively, were widely seen as violating party norms. The leadership accepted their removal. 31

Party unity during this period stemmed from several sources. Victory in the revolution, and the national unification that was achieved as a result, consolidated the authority of the revolution’s leaders. Top party leaders shared a commitment to Marxist ideology and to socialist modernization through the Soviet model. The initial success during the period of consolidation after 1949 and then in the First Five-Year Plan starting in 1953 further bolstered unity. Finally, senior party leaders acknowledged Mao’s unquestioned authority, which had been established in 1942. 32 In contrast to later periods, Mao observed the principles of collective leadership, delegated authority to the most competent party leaders regardless of their personal ties to him, and encouraged debate among the party on key issues. 33

The unity within the party created conditions for senior military officers to initiate strategic change. Because the party was unified, top party leaders had no incentive to draw the PLA into intraparty politics. Likewise, with a unified party, the PLA was not tempted to inject itself into elite politics. Hence, senior military officers could focus on military affairs and were even encouraged by China’s top party leaders. As Mao noted in September 1949, “Our people’s armed forces must be maintained and developed. We must not only have a strong army, but also a strong air force and navy.” 34

To be sure, the PLA still played a political role during this period, but as an agent of the party. From 1949 to 1953, many PLA units administered the areas they had conquered in the civil war. As victory in the revolution occurred much faster than the CCP’s top leaders had anticipated, the party lacked enough civilian cadres to administer the country and relied upon the military to undertake this task. 35 The PLA also engaged in military operations to eliminate all remaining armed opposition to CCP rule, including remnant Nationalist units and local warlords. Known as “bandit suppression” campaigns, they occurred throughout the country, but especially in the southwest and northwest. 36 By 1954, as the party-state had consolidated its authority through violent land reform in rural areas and mass campaigns in the cities, the PLA withdrew significantly from governance. Nevertheless, it continued to play a role in internal security, as the public security forces ( gong’an budui ) remained under the military during this period. 37

Based on this unity, the top party leaders delegated substantial responsibility for military affairs to the PLA’s high command. The process began in mid-1952, as the first Five-Year Plan was being drafted. Peng Dehuai, then the commander of Chinese forces in Korea, assumed responsibility for military affairs on behalf of the party. Zhou Enlai had shouldered this task since 1947, but now sought to turn his attention to government administration and economic development. After Peng returned to Beijing in April 1952 to be treated for a chronic disorder, the Politburo then decided that Peng should remain in Beijing to take charge of the CMC’s daily affairs and run the CMC’s general office. 38 After resting for several months, Peng formally assumed his new responsibilities on July 19, 1952. A CMC circular sent to all military units stated that “starting from today, every related document and telegram should all be copied and sent to Vice-Chairman Peng.” 39

The delegation of military affairs was reaffirmed when a new CMC was formed after the first National People’s Congress was held in September 1954. Mao Zedong chaired this new CMC, while its members included Deng Xiaoping, along with the ten veterans of the civil war who would be given the rank of marshal the following year. 40 At its first meeting, the CMC affirmed the 1952 decision that Peng would be responsible for the CMC’s daily affairs—effectively overseeing all aspects of military affairs. 41 Huang Kecheng, then a deputy chief of the general staff who worked directly with Peng, recalled later that Mao “formally gave all work of the armed forces [ budui ] to Peng to manage.” 42 At the same time, “major issues would be decided by the CMC.”

Two examples reflect the delegation of military affairs to Peng and the other veteran commanders in this period. The first is Mao’s absence from all enlarged meetings of the CMC until June 1958. Official party history sources contain no references to Mao attending CMC meetings. 43 Peng would consult with Mao, but often after meetings were held. The second is Mao’s own statements. In June 1958, for example, Mao acknowledged the delegation of responsibility to senior military officers, noting that “I have not interfered in military affairs for four years, which was all given [ tuigei ] to comrade Peng Dehuai.” 44 Peng frequently consulted with Mao and other top party leaders on major decisions but the initiative for change emanated from Peng and his fellow officers.

Before 1956, senior military officers implemented foundational reforms to the entire organization of the PLA. Although they preceded the formal adoption of China’s first military strategy that would be issued a few years later, they were pursued for the same reason: to enable the PLA to wage modern warfare. Some included decisions on components of the strategy that would be formalized in the strategic guideline issued in 1956. The process by which these reforms were initiated also illustrates the delegation of responsibility for military affairs from the top party leadership to the senior military officers. Although Mao Zedong approved these reforms as chairman of the CMC, he did not intervene in the process by which they were determined.

In mid-1952, the GSD drafted the PLA’s first five-year plan. Called the Outline of the Five-Year Plan for Military Development, the document contained several decisions regarding China’s military strategy that would become part of the 1956 strategic guideline, including the identification of China’s main enemy, the “primary strategic direction” or center of gravity in a future war, and the force structure needed to defend China in such a conflict. The plan also contained what one senior general described as China’s “blueprint” for the PLA’s modernization. 45

In early 1952, the top party leadership started to draft the first Five-Year Plan for the development of China’s economy. Because economic development would need to be coordinated with national defense requirements, Zhou Enlai instructed the GSD to draft a five-year plan for the development of the armed forces. 46 In early April 1952, Su Yu, the deputy chief of the general staff, proposed that the CMC should first determine China’s strategic guideline before drafting any development plans. Su’s proposal, contained in a report submitted to the CMC, marks the first time that a senior military officer proposed formulating a national military strategy for the People’s Republic. 47 Su urged that “[we] must first determine the overall strategic guideline for our country” so that “our overall national defense plans can be formulated according to the whole strategic guideline.” 48 Without a strategy, Su feared, development plans would lack clear direction, be poorly coordinated and, ultimately, be ineffective. Su stressed the need to determine the enemy’s primary and secondary directions of attack along with the PLA’s operational plans for countering such attacks. 49 Although the CMC did not formulate a strategic guideline at this time, Su’s report prompted a clarification of some of these “urgent strategic issues” that would become incorporated into the PLA’s five-year plan. 50

In May 1952, the GSD requested that all services, branches, and departments submit five-year plans. Lei Yingfu, Zhou Enlai’s military secretary, who had just been appointed as deputy director of the GSD’s operations department, authored a draft of the five-year plan, which was completed in early June. The draft included an assessment of the enemy, the objectives of the plan, the requirements of the plan, defense deployments, and authorized strength and equipment. 51 The GSD submitted the draft to Mao and other top party leaders on June 24 and it was approved in mid-July.

Although the five-year plan never addressed Su Yu’s idea of using strategy to guide military planning, it did contain several components of the 1956 strategy. The first part of the plan was an assessment of China’s external security environment. Unsurprisingly, given the ongoing war on the Korean Peninsula, the United States was identified as China’s main adversary. The plan noted that “enemy countries” could attack China with between 4.5 and 6 million soldiers, presumably in a joint U.S.-Nationalist attack. 52 It identified north China as the main strategic direction, which was described as “an area to defend to the death and wage decisive battles.” 53 North China represented the area north of the Longhai railroad that terminated at Lianyungang on the coast of Jiangsu province and included the Shandong and Liaodong peninsulas. East China was a secondary strategic direction and described as “an area that we must hold” ( jianshou de diqu ), especially the cities of Nanjing, Shanghai, Xuzhou, and Ningbo. 54 A third area of importance was southern China, with a focus on Hainan Island.

As shown in table 3.1 , the proposed deployment of China’s forces in the plan reflected the threat assessment. These deployments implied that China would not adopt a strategy of “luring the enemy in deep.” Instead, it called for maintaining the ability to successfully destroy enemy units on the main battlefield—what the PLA describes as annihilation operations. 55 What the plan did not discuss, however, was how China would fight if invaded, a topic that the 1956 strategic guideline would address.

Regarding force structure, the plan emphasized the development of the ground forces and the air force over the navy and proposed maintaining a peacetime ground force of 100 divisions with approximately 1.57 million soldiers organized into 28 army headquarters ( junbu ). 56 In wartime, the plan called for expanding the ground forces to 300 divisions organized into 80 headquarters. The plan also called for raising 150 squadrons in the air force by 1957, with over 6,200 aircraft and 450,000 personnel. A major lesson drawn from China’s experience in the Korean War was that China would always be in a passive position in future wars without the ability to seize local air superiority. 57 The navy’s development, however, was limited to coastal defense ( jin’an fangyu ) and coastal fortifications. Nevertheless, the plan called for expanding the navy from 298 to 785 vessels and increasing the tonnage from 11.5 million tons to 25 million tons. The plan also outlined increasing the size of the branches, including artillery, armored, and engineering corps, as well as air defense troops. 58

The plan called for establishing an indigenous defense industry to produce the weapons and equipment that China would need to arm this new force and supplement equipment being purchased from the Soviet Union. The plan envisioned China buying or producing enough weapons, artillery, and tanks for one hundred divisions along with light weapons for two hundred additional divisions. 59 Although China continued to seek arms from the Soviets, the plan expressed a clear preference to meet its requirements through domestic production. The plan also suggested that the development of civilian ( minyong ) industries should consider the requirements for producing weapons and ammunition for the force in wartime. 60

As the Korean War continued, implementation of the five-year plan was limited in the first year to the development of a system of permanent fortifications and defensive works in coastal areas. The need for such fortifications was one lesson that Peng drew from World War II, especially the stubborn Finnish defense against the Soviet invasion. 61 On August 25, 1952, the CMC decided to build fortifications in five areas. As shown in map 3.1 , the first three of these were in the northeast, which had been identified as the main strategic direction: the Liaodong Peninsula, the area from Qinhuang Island to Tanggu on the coast just northeast of Tianjin, and the Jiaodong Peninsula (which refers to main part of the Shandong Peninsula). The other two areas of focus were the Zhoushan Islands area near Shanghai, and Hainan Island. 62 In January 1953, the CMC approved a plan to build 184 defensive areas ( fangyu zhendi) by 1956, which was later extended to 1957. 63 Starting in the fall of 1952, Peng began to conduct inspection tours of coastal areas to identify potential landing zones for an American attack and to issue instructions for the construction of fortifications. He began by visiting the Liaodong Peninsula in October 1952, as he feared that US forces might seek to launch an assault there to outflank the Chinese forces in Korea.

The spark for the conference was an urgent directive in July 1953 to reduce spending on defense. The state faced a budget crisis, with a deficit surpassing twelve percent. To close the shortfall, spending on government and military agencies had to be reduced significantly. The PLA was instructed that spending in 1953 could not exceed 1952 levels, placing severe constraints on the ambitions of the five-year plan. The plan had to be revised, as China could no longer afford to import the new weapons with which it was going to expand and equip the air force, navy, and combat arms .

How to pursue the PLA’s modernization under these conditions became the central challenge facing China’s senior military officers. In August and September 1953, Peng Dehuai convened several CMC meetings to formulate a response. The group debated how much to downsize the force and the roles of the services and branches. The CMC agreed on a general framework for modernization. First, the force should be reduced by 1.3 million within two years, to 3.5 million (including the public security force). 64 This reaffirmed a previous decision (taken before the budget cap was announced) and would consist mostly of demobilizing infantry units. Second, the growth of the services and branches would be frozen for the next five years. Third, the general departments and military regions, which had become “excessively large,” would be streamlined and reorganized. Fourth, the CMC would study various systems ( zhidu ) such as conscription, ranks, and salaries to increase efficiency and effectiveness of command necessary for complex, modern operations. 65

As the CMC’s proposals would influence all aspects of army building at the organizational level, Peng proposed holding an army-wide meeting of senior officers. Peng would need to build consensus for his vision among a much broader group of the PLA’s leadership beyond those on the CMC and in the GSD who had drafted the five-year plan in 1952. Peng identified the goals of the meeting as summarizing the past four years of military work and “discussing and resolving the guideline for army building in the future.” 66 Peng’s goal was ambitious—to transform the PLA into “a superior modernized revolutionary army in the world.” 67

The meeting began on December 7 and lasted for almost two months. More than 120 leaders from the general departments, military regions, services, branches, and academies participated. Reflecting the meeting’s importance, the presidium included all members of the CMC except for Deng Xiaoping (who was not involved in military affairs at the time), as well as other leaders. 68 Most members of the CMC made speeches. In his report, Peng identified several obstacles to modernization that “cannot be ignored.” 69 The first obstacle was a poor understanding of modern warfare and insufficient recognition of the changes that would be required to transform the PLA. Peng critiqued “some comrades” who viewed modernization simply as adding new equipment, such as tanks or planes, without major organizational change. Instead Peng viewed the changes as a shift “from only infantry to the coordination of various branches and services, from backwards weapons and equipment to modern equipment, from dispersed operations to centralized modern standardized operations.” Peng stressed that these changes constituted “a big leap forward. It is a change in essence, not just simply an increase in quantity.” 70

The second obstacle concerned the PLA’s organizational deficiencies. Peng noted that the PLA’s “organization, personnel and systems … were not suited to the demands of building a modern military.” A core problem was the decentralization of command during the civil war, where individual units used different kinds of weapons and adopted their own organizational practices regarding training, discipline, and so forth. Coordination among units from different areas was rare. Again, Peng criticized “some comrades” who “still lack sufficient understanding that the more modern a military is, the higher the demand for centralization and close cooperation.” 71 Overstaffed and redundant organizations also hindered improving coordination and standardization.

When the conference concluded in January 1954, the PLA leadership reached consensus around how to pursue modernization. The meeting outlined the “general guideline and general mission” of building a “modernized revolutionary force” to safeguard China’s socialist development and defend against “imperialist aggression.” 72 As Peng said, a “modernized force must have modernized weapons and equipment” along with the transportation infrastructure to support such a force. 73 China should not rely on foreign imports to achieve these goals, but instead develop its own industrial base and, especially, heavy industries. Reducing defense spending and reducing the force to 3.5 million would free up resources for the nation’s industrial development. The conference also affirmed the decision to halt the growth of the services and combat arms and instead focus on increasing the quality of the existing forces.

Beyond these general goals for the PLA’s modernization, the conference also decided many policy issues. One decision, perhaps obvious, was to emphasize formal training and especially the training of officers. Training officers was described as “the core of the core of building a modernized force.” 74 By 1957, the PLA established 106 comprehensive and specialized military academies. 75

Another decision was to prioritize what Peng frequently described as “standardization” ( zhengguihua ). This meant using “formal standards in all aspects of the army” to overcome the decentralization of command and organization from the civil war. 76 Perhaps most important, standardization was necessary for “meeting the requirements for unified command and coordinated action in modern warfare,” or how the PLA would need to fight in the future. 77 Other elements of standardization included unified systems, organization, training, and discipline. 78 Over the next year, the CMC would develop “the three great systems” ( sanda zhidu ) of conscription, salaries, and ranks that were issued in 1955 to replace the use of volunteers, rations, and informal ranks during the civil war. 79 The conference also determined the responsibilities and organization of the military regions, military districts, and military subdistricts along with the leading bodies of the services and branches and the authorized strength of operational units. 80

A fourth decision was to strengthen the role of headquarters and other command units. Headquarters ( silingbu ) were deemed to be the body for organizing modern warfare and commanding the campaigns and battles of an integrated force with various services and branches. 81 Successful command required “sound, capable and effective command bodies [ jiguan ].” 82 As part of improving command, the CMC decided in late 1954 to establish twelve military regions, replacing a more cumbersome system of management and command from the civil war. Under the CMC’s overall leadership, the military regions were responsible for the command of the main force units (then called the national defense army), while the provincial military districts and prefectural subdistricts would only command local forces. 83 The rationale was to reduce the layers of command and organize China’s forces according to operational targets and directions, geographic conditions, transportation, and other factors. In China’s main strategic direction in northern China, for example, the Shenyang, Beijing, and Jinan Military Regions were established to focus on defending the capital and key invasion routes.

From February 1954 to the end of 1955, the force was reduced to 3.5 million, or by more than twenty-one percent. Most of the reductions occurred in infantry units, increasing the proportion of the force in the services and branches. 84 New branches were also established, including railway, communications, and chemical defense troops. When combined with armor, artillery, and engineering units, the PLA now had seven branches ( bingzhong ). Another noteworthy development was the expansion of armored forces. Nevertheless, similar to the five-year plan adopted in 1952, the senior cadre conference did not contain a clear strategy outlining how these forces would be used. Instead, it focused on erecting the foundation for the organization and development of a modern force that could be used effectively once a strategy was adopted.

In November 1955, the PLA conducted its largest exercise since 1949 on the Liaodong Peninsula in Liaoning province. The exercise was based on how China would counter the primary threat China believed it faced—a US amphibious assault in the northeast—and highlighted the organizational reforms identified at the senior cadre meeting to enhance the PLA’s ability to conduct modern-style operations. In other words, the exercise demonstrated how the PLA leadership viewed the conduct of warfare that would inform the new strategy adopted only a few months later. 85

In July 1955, the CMC decided to hold a large-scale exercise on the Liaodong Peninsula. Ye Jianying, a vice-chairman of the CMC and acting director of the Training Supervision Department, served as the director ( daoyan ). 86 The exercise was a “demonstration exercise” ( shifanxing yanxi ) of an anti-landing campaign ( kangdenglu zhanyi ) to show how to respond to an amphibious and airborne assault that involved the use of nuclear and chemical weapons. Ye described the purpose as helping commanders and headquarters “to learn how to organize and command complex campaigns and battles under modern conditions.” 87

The Liaodong exercise would be the largest exercise that the PLA would hold until the “802” meeting in 1981. Reflecting one of the main threats to China identified in 1952, the opposing force in the exercise would seek to establish beachheads and seize ports in the Bohai Gulf to then attack Beijing and Shenyang. 88 The Chinese practiced how to counterattack with a coastal defense campaign using a group army composed of various branches ( zhubingzhong jituanjun ). More than 68,000 troops from all three services participated, including soldiers from 32 regiments along with 262 aircraft and 18 ships. 89 Most of the CMC as well as top party leaders including Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping observed the exercise along with representatives from the Soviet Union, North Korea, Vietnam, and Mongolia. 90

In discussing the exercise, senior military officers highlighted the importance of studying modern warfare, which would inform the strategy that would be adopted in a few months. In his evaluation of the exercise, Ye Jianying noted that nuclear and chemical weapons along with missiles and motorization “increased the suddenness and destructiveness of warfare” while also increasing the scale of wars that had become “more arduous and brutal.” For Ye, the result of these changes was that “the organization and command of war is more complex and difficult.” 91

Peng Dehuai also observed that the exercise demonstrated the characteristics of modern warfare. At the closing ceremony, Peng criticized “some comrades” who relied only on past battlefield experience and did not embrace training. Peng warned that by “relying on past experience and not learning the knowledge of modern warfare, it is impossible to command a modern force to victory.” 92 Peng stressed the centrality of coordinated action ( xietiao dongzuo ) among the services and branches. “In modern warfare,” he said, “no single branch can solve strategic and campaign tasks alone, and no single branch can replace another.” 93 For Peng, “the coordinated action of the various branches is the most important issue in modern warfare.” 94 The use of new technologies in warfare increased the speed and mobility of modern forces. As a result, in the battles and campaigns of modern war, “changes in circumstances will be quick and complex.” 95 Without the strong coordination of operational actions, Peng asserted, “it will be difficult to achieve victory in battles or campaigns.” 96

At the tactical and operational level, improving coordination required mastering new skills, which the Liaodong exercise was intended to demonstrate. Peng underscored that “modern warfare requires that the armed forces … be fluent in the tactical and technical performance of various weapons.” 97 These skills formed the foundation of tactics and were necessary for achieving campaign plans based on tactical performance. Consistent with his focus on standardization, Peng also called for implementing military regulations, stating that “the implementation of common regulations is the key to moving toward the standardization of our military.” 98 He stressed the need for combat regulations for all the branches, which would guide training in peacetime and serve as the basis for organizing and conducting battles in wartime. 99

After building consensus around modernization at the senior cadre conference and launching reforms to deepen standardization of the force, Peng Dehuai turned toward formulating China’s first strategic guideline. Soviet advisors had urged Peng as early as July 1952 to draft an army-wide operations plan for a major war. At the time, however, Peng believed that it was necessary to first take initial steps toward modernizing the force, including absorbing the new equipment being acquired from the Soviet Union and developing the new services and branches. Only once progress had been made toward equipping the force, Peng believed, could an effective operations plan be drafted and implemented.

Mao provided an opening for Peng during his assessment of China’s security environment at the CCP’s National Congress in March 1955. 100 Overall, Mao was upbeat, observing that “international conditions” were favorable for China’s socialist development, especially the strength of the socialist bloc. Nevertheless, the possibility of conflict with the United States could not be eliminated. China remained “surrounded by imperialist forces” and therefore “must prepare to deal with sudden incidents [ turan shibian ].” 101 Mao did not say that war was likely or even imminent, but he believed that if “the imperialists” did strike, it would start with a “surprise attack” ( turan de xiji ) and China should “avoid being caught unprepared.” 102 Although this meeting focused almost exclusively on domestic issues, such as the First Five-Year Plan, Mao’s comment reflected a call for vigilance after the 1954 Taiwan Straits crisis and the expansion of US alliances in the region .

Peng had also decided that the time had come for drafting an army-wide operations plan. Developing one, however, would also requiring determining China’s strategic guideline. When chairing a working conference on war preparations ( zhanbei ) in early April, Peng stated that an operations plan for a major war should be drafted. Peng outlined his view on the relationship between positional and mobile warfare and guiding principles for operations. In April, the GSD drafted an outline of the plan, which Peng then presented to a meeting of the Central Committee Secretariat on April 29. 103 In his presentation, Peng said that “it was necessary first to resolve the question of the strategic guideline” to provide a framework for the operations plan. 104 In response, Mao reaffirmed that “our strategic guideline has always been active defense, our operations will be counter-attacks, and we will never be the first to initiate a war.” 105 As Peng was also preparing to visit the Soviet Union the following month, Mao suggested that he discuss China’s strategy and operational coordination with his Soviet counterparts.

In early June, progress toward developing the strategic guideline continued after Peng returned from Moscow. In a report on his trip to the party leadership, Peng requested permission to “write a document that set forth China’s strategic guideline.” He said that the document would then be discussed at an enlarged meeting of the CMC and distributed to “unify the thought of the whole army and the whole party.” 106 Peng also made two other suggestions based on his trip. First, China needed to develop its own military science so that it would not have to rely on the Soviet Union and on Soviet approaches. Second, China should draft two versions of the operations plan: one in collaboration with Soviet advisors to reflect general principles and to be used as the basis for wartime coordination, and another that China would write by itself, based on China’s strategic guideline and actual conditions. 107 On August 16, during a meeting to discuss the operations plan, Peng noted that many differences with the Soviets had been resolved because “our position and method suits our backwards situation, not because we are particularly smart.” 108

After the completion of the Liaodong anti-landing exercise in November 1955, the last step toward adopting the new strategy occurred in early December 1955. On December 1, the CMC sent a report to Mao suggesting that an enlarged meeting be held in early 1956 to discuss the strategic guideline as part of an army-wide discussion of strategy. According to the report, “Everyone’s understanding and knowledge of this guideline is still not in agreement.” Agreement was needed “so that everyone can comprehensively plan all work under unified operational guidance.” Given the development of China’s defense industries, as well as new services and branches, the report concluded that “the conditions are now relatively ripe to resolve this important issue.” 109 Mao agreed and the drafting of the report began. Participants in the drafting included Peng’s secretaries, Su Yu (now chief of the general staff), and Lei Yingfu (section chief in the operations department). 110

In March 1956, an enlarged meeting of the CMC was convened to adopt China’s first military strategy. In addition to members of the CMC, the leaders of the general departments, services, branches, and all military districts—as well as the Soviet military advisor and his deputy—attended. Reflecting the importance of the task and the broader impact of military strategy on the economy, leading officials from the State Council and key line ministries such as finance and transportation also participated. 111

When the meeting opened on March 6, Peng Dehuai introduced the new strategy on behalf of the CMC in a report entitled On the Strategic Guideline for Defending the Motherland and National Defense Building . The first section of the report, “On the Strategic Guideline,” described the content of the new strategy, while the second section, “On National Defense Building,” discussed its implementation. 112 Other members of the CMC who spoke at the meeting included Ye Jianying, Nie Rongzhen, Su Yu, and Huang Kecheng. When the meeting ended on March 15, participants agreed to adopt the strategy described in Peng’s report. Although Mao did not attend the meeting, he reviewed and approved Peng’s report in early April, which reflects the high level of delegation for overseeing military affairs from top party leaders to senior military officers. 113

The new strategy focused on the single contingency of a major war with the United States. As Peng discussed at the meeting, his report focused on “the strategic guideline that our military should adopt when the enemy in the future engages in a large-scale and direct attack of our country.” Specifically, the strategy covered “the initial or first stage of a war.” 114 During this period, which would last roughly six months, the PLA’s defense would deny the United States a quick victory and buy time for a nation-wide mobilization to wage a protracted war.

The core of the strategy was the idea of active defense. As Peng would later describe, “Our country should have a guideline of strategic defense.” 115 However, “this kind of defense should not be passive defense but rather should be a strategic guideline of active defense.” 116 Peng sought to adapt Mao’s concept from the mid-1930s—when the Red Army fought for its survival against the much stronger Nationalists—to defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the new state.

First, and most obviously, the proposed strategy was defensive. Put simply, China’s material inferiority against the United States dictated a defensive posture. China had no choice but to try to counter an invasion—it had no ability to strike first, much less to take the fight to the enemy. A defensive posture was also consistent with China’s identity as a socialist state (which would not engage in aggression against others) and its identification with a just war tradition that viewed the use of force as legitimate only for “righteous” reasons such as national defense. 117 In the mid-1950s, China also desired a peaceful environment for pursuing socialist modernization and sought to strengthen ties with nonaligned states, especially after the 1955 Bandung Conference, when China began to stress the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. 118 China would undermine these goals, and its effort to portray the United States and imperialism as aggressive, if it adopted an offensive strategy.

Second, despite adopting a defensive posture, the strategy for defending the People’s Republic would be an active one, not a passive one. Although this resonates with Mao’s own definition, the emphasis on being active and not passive had new meaning. Given China’s material and technological inferiority, the purpose of the strategy was to inflict sufficient casualties on the enemy to create conditions for the transition at the strategic level from defense to offense. In the event of an attack, China needed “to be able to respond immediately with a powerful counterattack.” 119 Thus, defense would be strategically combined with active attacks in campaigns and at the tactical level. The purpose of these offensive actions was to weaken the enemy and allow China to transition from being in a passive position when first attacked to an active one.

Third, and perhaps most different from the 1930s, the new strategy required undertaking sufficient preparations to “actively take measures to prevent or postpone the outbreak of war.” 120 Peng described such measures as “continuously strengthening our nation’s military strength and expanding our nation’s activity in the international united front.” 121 In other words, the strategy was as much about deterrence as it was about victory. Although China’s alliance with the Soviet Union and its efforts to build support among the nonaligned movement would also help to deter a conflict, the 1956 strategy emphasized the role of China’s own efforts to continue to enhance its military power and combat readiness. As Peng told his colleagues, “We must actively carry out all preparations.” 122 These included building a network of fortifications in important coastal regions, formulating campaign plans, ensuring that basic industries were dispersed and not heavily concentrated, educating urban residents on nuclear and chemical defense, and improving reconnaissance and air defense capabilities for detecting signs of an attack or the use of weapons of mass destruction. 123 This would ensure that “our military’s forces on the front line and in depth can promptly enter into battle and the whole country can rapidly switch from a peacetime to a wartime posture.” 124

Taken together, Peng’s interpretation of active defense provided China with a theory of victory. Once an invasion started, China would strive to “resist several continuous enemy offenses and limit their advance into predetermined areas.” 125 Although the strategy assumed that an invasion could not be prevented and that the United States would seize some territory along the coast, it sought to deny a quick victory to the United States and force it to wage a protracted war.

An important innovation in the 1956 strategy was the primary form of operations that would be used. This was “combining positional defensive operations by garrison forces with mobile offensive warfare by maneuver units.” 126 The emphasis on positional warfare marked a clear departure from the PLA’s dominant way of fighting from the civil war to the stalemate on the Korean Peninsula in 1951. As Peng observed, positional warfare was “rare in the history of our military.” 127 Now tasked with defending national territory, the 1956 strategy stated that “we must do everything we can to hold key areas, islands and important cities along the coast.” 128 Otherwise, if the PLA allowed the enemy to “drive straight in,” China would have to return to the use of mobile warfare of the civil war and the country “would suffer great difficulties.” Therefore, “to rely completely on mobile warfare to annihilate the enemy is extremely mistaken.” 129 Guerrilla warfare no longer had “strategic status” and would only be used in areas temporarily occupied by the enemy. 130

The concept of operations or the “basic guiding thought for operations” in the new strategy described how the combination of positional and mobile warfare would achieve the strategy’s defensive goals. The strategy envisioned “using the ground forces as the main element, complemented by coordination with the air force and the navy, to annihilate the main force of the enemy’s attack in the coastal areas of our national territory.” 131 No more than one quarter of the ground forces would be designated as garrison units ( shoubei budui ) to defend selected coastal areas that would be heavily fortified to create a perimeter defense ( huangxing fangyu ). 132 These units would be well equipped with large stockpiles of ammunition so that they could “tenaciously defend” these positions to “do all they can to pin down the enemy by holding fast to their positions and engaging in appropriate counterattack operations.” 133 In this way, garrison units would “create conditions for maneuver units to annihilate the enemy.” 134 Coastal islands in these same areas would also be fortified to slow down the tempo of the enemy’s attack. If defenses were well prepared and troops were well trained, garrison forces would be able to “stop [ dangzhu ] several waves of surprise attacks.” 135

The remaining three-quarters of the ground forces would be designated as maneuver units ( jidong budui ). These units would be deployed in echelons, in-depth and dispersed so as not to be easily destroyed through strategic bombing before the invasion. If garrison units were able to stop or slow down the offensive, the maneuver units would then be employed to annihilate enemy forces. The timing of their deployment, however, was critical and “must be selected cautiously.” 136 If used too soon or too hastily, they could become vulnerable or unable to destroy the US forces. To improve success, these units would endeavor to “use a covert and sudden attack to resolutely destroy the enemy.” 137 Thus, the strategy called for coordination among the garrison and maneuver units, along with the services and branches that would participate in the defense.

The second half of the report discussed goals for military modernization, mobilization, and military scientific research. In terms of army building, the report affirmed earlier decisions to limit the size of the force to 3.5 million and envisioned shrinking the force to 2.4 million by the end of 1957. The report called for “giving particular attention” to the development of the air force and air defense forces. Secondary tasks would be focusing on submarines and torpedo boats in the navy and increasing the proportion of artillery, tank, chemical defense, and communications units in the ground forces, as well as overall levels of mechanization. 138 All these changes in force structure would be achieved by reducing the number of infantry units. Although wildly unrealistic in hindsight, the strategy hoped to be able to “reach a level of technological sophistication that approaches advanced countries” in ten years, by 1967. 139 More realistically, the report also called for building coastal defense installations as well as transportation networks that would connect them and the interior by 1962. 140 Emphasis would be placed on islands, ports, and transportation nodes, as well as political and economic centers in coastal areas, to create a defensive perimeter. 141 The construction of such fortifications would continue efforts, discussed earlier in this chapter, that had begun in 1952.

Regarding mobilization, the report emphasized enhancing China’s preparations. As the strategy was premised on buying time for nation-wide mobilization, how to mobilize was an important topic to address. Key tasks included establishing mobilization offices and developing an overall mobilization plan by 1957. An important part of the plan would be to ensure sufficient manpower and supplies to expand the force and replenish units in the first six months of a war. This included plans for wartime expansion of the force, ensuring sufficient stocks of weapons, supplies, and the like. 142

A final topic of discussion was developing China’s own capacity for military science research. For Peng, “war in the future will be different from the past civil war and the War of Resistance against Japan, and will be different from the Soviet Patriotic War.” 143 Peng noted “the wide application of the latest advances in science and technology to military affairs and the emergence of large numbers of weapons of mass destruction” in concluding that “the methods and forms of future wars will have many new characteristics.” 144 Based on these changes, Peng called for “actively developing” China’s own military science research institutes for researching strategy, campaigns, tactics, military history, and military technology. 145 According to Peng’s official biography, the discussion of this topic at the meeting “was the first program for the army-wide development of military science.” 14 6

During this period, China determined the elements of its naval strategy. This subsequently became known as “near-coast defense” ( jin’an fangyu ), even though, ironically enough, this term was not used by the PLA at the time. 147 In addition to the general parameters contained in the strategic guideline, naval strategy was further detailed during the first conference of party representatives in the navy from June 9 to June 19. The resolution endorsed by the participants contained “the three obeys” ( fucong ): the navy must follow the guideline for national economic development by limiting the size of its force, must pursue its own development while giving priority to the air force and air defense force, and must focus its development on naval aviation, submarines, and torpedo boats. 148 Within these parameters, the navy was assigned two tasks. The first was to disrupt an amphibious assault and support all efforts to counter such an attack. The second was to patrol China’s coast, especially to defend against Nationalist harassment and infiltration operations and to protect Chinese fishermen and shipping. 149 This strategy would continue until 1986, when “near-seas defense” was articulated as the strategic concept for China’s naval strategy.

The initial reforms in the early to mid-1950s and the adoption of the 1956 strategic guideline should represent an “easy” case for arguments about emulation. China was a late military modernizer, allied with one of the two most powerful militaries in the international system. It had access not only to Soviet hardware such as weapons, equipment, and related technologies, but also to Soviet software such as operational doctrine, training regimens, and organizational practices. China and the Soviet Union also shared some similar strategic characteristics that might inform their choice of strategy—for example, strategic depth, and long histories as land powers. If emulation is going to explain change in military strategy anywhere, it should be able to explain China during the 1950s.

To be sure, the Soviet influence on the PLA cannot be dismissed. As Peng Dehuai’s biographers note with candor not always found in other sources, “Soviet military and strategic thought had an influence on China’s armed forces.” 150 In terms of weapons and equipment, the Soviets sold China equipment for 60 infantry divisions as well as plans, machinery, and technology to jump-start the development of China’s defense industries. Of the 156 factories that the Soviets provided to the Chinese, 44—or more than 30 percent—were for defense industries. Chinese soldiers wore Soviet-style uniforms and were issued Soviet-style decorations. Key Soviet field regulations were translated into Chinese and used in China’s military academies and schools for most of the 1950s as teaching texts. Soviet advisors trained Chinese military personnel directly, especially in the navy and the air force but also in the service branches and combat arms. Overall, there were almost 600 military advisors and at least 7,000 technical experts in China in the 1950s. 151

China clearly used the Soviet Union as a vehicle for studying the content and practice of modern warfare in the early 1950s. Nevertheless, the key question is whether China sought to emulate the Soviet model for waging modern war and its strategy in particular. Below I examine the potential for emulation at the strategic and operational levels of analysis, which provide only limited support for emulation. Despite the euphoria associated with learning from the Soviets in the early 1950s, by the middle of the decade Chinese strategists had focused on “how” to learn. The main reason for this shift was a recognition that the disparity in national conditions and warfighting history meant that not all things Soviet were necessarily appropriate for China. Chinese leaders also clearly recognized that they lacked the industrial base to field the type of mechanized force that the Soviets possessed.

Before proceeding, two other points should be noted. To start, China sought to learn about modern warfare from a number of countries, not just the Soviet Union. It translated American field manuals in addition to Soviet ones. This suggests that China was less interested in imitation or copying and more interested in understanding the characteristics of the type of war that they might need to fight. In January 1957, for example, Peng said that the PLA’s regulations “should be based on China’s own traditions and experiences, reference the Soviet experiences, and absorb the useful things from capitalist countries.” 152 In April 1957, Peng urged the staff at the Advanced Military Academy to study “capitalist” countries as well. As Peng said, “Capitalist countries don’t have anything advanced? I don’t believe it. Then how did Hitler’s army fight its way to the outskirts of Moscow? How did the American military fight its way to the banks of the Yalu River?” 153

In addition, although the Soviet Union and China were treaty allies, the relationship was an unequal one. China was the junior partner who depended on what Moscow was willing to share, a dynamic which, over time, led China to question the merits of the Soviet approach. For instance, although the Soviets provided equipment and expertise, China had to pay for all of it. Most of the weapons that the Soviets provided were World War II–era and not the latest models in the Soviet arsenal. 154 Peng himself realized this after observing that the weapons used by the Soviets in a series of 1954 exercises were newer and better than those being sold to China. 155 The Soviets were selling surplus weapons to China to modernize their own force. When pressed, the Soviets were reluctant to sell current models. 15 6

Strong evidence against emulation can be found at the strategic level of analysis. As discussed above, the 1956 strategy was based on the strategic defensive—namely, absorbing a first strike before retaliating. When this strategy was conceived and adopted, however, Soviet strategic thought increasingly emphasized preemptive action and first strikes. China was fully aware of the shift in Soviet thinking and rejected it. 157

The differences over strategy between China and the Soviet Union emerged most clearly when Peng Dehuai visited Moscow in May 1955 after attending the inaugural meeting of the Warsaw Pact in Poland. On May 22, he met with defense minister Georgy Zhukov to discuss military strategy and outlined China’s plans for countering a potential invasion. 158 Peng informed Zhukov that China’s strategy would be based on “active defense” and the principle of “gaining control by striking afterwards” ( houfa zhiren ). 159 Zhukov opposed China’s approach. He told Peng that a nuclear attack would be decisive and that, in modern war, victory and defeat would be determined in only a few minutes. 160 For Zhukov, the advent of nuclear weapons represented a clear shift from conventional wars of the past, even World War II or Korea. With the first-strike advantages created by nuclear weapons, Zhukov believed that no country would be able to recover once attacked.

Peng challenged Zhukov’s view. He stated that great powers such as China and the Soviet Union could undertake sufficient preparations to withstand a nuclear attack. Moreover, for Peng, the military advantages to be gained through a first strike were only temporary and would not offset the political cost of using such weapons. Peng noted how Germany and Japan were defeated despite striking first in World War II, and also argued that China won its past wars by emphasizing the strategic defensive, such as during the war against Japan and in the Chinese civil war. 161 Peng’s views about nuclear weapons were not necessarily accurate. Nevertheless, China rejected the Soviet approach to military strategy, despite being one of the leading military powers in the system.

According to Wang Yazhi, Peng’s military secretary, the exchange with Zhukov had a profound impact and helped to clarify Peng’s approach to China’s military strategy. It highlighted the differences in approach to strategy, which in turn would affect operational doctrine, force structure, and training. Peng questioned the utility and authoritativeness of Soviet military science, which up to that point had been embraced without much critical reflection. Peng also noted the Soviet tendency to emphasize achieving victory through superior technology and equipment, whereas the PLA had achieved victory by finding ways to use inferior equipment to defeat superior adversaries. Given China’s technical and industrial inferiority versus the United States, the Soviet strategy was not particularly appealing (or feasible). 162 Thus, Peng’s meeting with Zhukov affirmed the importance of the strategic defensive and the concept of active defense, which Peng viewed as well suited to China’s circumstances. It also reaffirmed his desire, expressed before his trip, that the CMC adopt a formal strategic guideline and, as contained in the 1956 report, that China develop its own military science.

Perhaps not unsurprisingly, available sources contain no references to Peng’s consultations with Soviet advisors when drafting his 1956 report on the strategic guideline. The chief military advisor, General Petroshevskii, did attend the March 1956 CMC meeting and Peng shared a copy of the report with the advisors afterwards. Their disapproval, however, suggests that the strategy did not seek to emulate the Soviet approach to warfare. Indeed, they openly derided the concept of active defense in the 1956 guideline. The Soviet advisors maintained that “the offensive is the only military means for gaining victory.” 163 The chief Soviet advisor at the Nanjing Military Academy even referred to active defense as “metaphysics” ( xing er shang xue ). 164

To be sure, the 1955 Liaodong Peninsula exercises reflected a Soviet approach to defensive warfare. According to Peng’s secretary, “On a certain level it was an exercise in studying the Soviet army’s field operations regulations.” 165 Troops were organized into fronts (fangmian jun ) and combined arms group armies (jituan jun ), according to the Soviet force structure. The aim of the exercise was to halt the invasion at the beaches by using echeloned forces and reserve units. 166 Nevertheless, the operational principles contained in the 1956 guidelines did not envision defending China against an amphibious assault in this manner. Instead, it accepted that China could only engage US units once they had landed, defending fixed positions while using maneuver forces against the main direction of attack. In this way, it was decidedly non-Soviet. In fact, one of the main lessons of the exercise may well have been the inapplicability of the Soviet model to what China viewed as its main security threat. Such disagreements with the Soviets probably began much earlier. When Peng decided in August 1952 to construct a system of permanent coastal fortifications, Soviet advisors opposed the plan. Peng, however, “could not understand” the Soviet objection and continued to build the fortifications. 167

Similarly, even before 1949 and certainly after Chinese troops joined the Korean War, the PLA had used translations of Soviet army field regulations. For instance, in Korea, the PLA used Soviet artillery regulations as it increased the proportion of artillery in infantry units. 168 Liu Bocheng himself supervised the translation of the 1954 Soviet army field regulations. 169 By mid-1956, however, Peng had concluded that China must draft its own operations regulations within three to five years. 170 In January 1957, he noted that “if we follow others, then we will always take a circuitous route.” 171 In early 1958, he assigned this task to the newly established AMS. The move to draft China’s own regulations gained momentum during a debate about “dogmatism” and “blind copying” of the Soviet system that occurred at an enlarged meeting of the CMC that lasted from late May until mid-July 1958. At the meeting, senior officers deemed to have been “dogmatists” were demoted, including Marshal Liu Bocheng, then president of the Military Academy in Nanjing, and Xiao Ke, head of the GSD’s training department, among others. 172 The meeting resolved that China should draft its own combat regulations and, in so doing, “use China’s experience as the basis” ( yi wo wei zhu ) and “use the Soviets as a reference.” The primacy of the Soviet approach was rejected for several reasons, but the most important one was that it was ill suited to China’s actual geographic, economic, and industrial conditions. It was, simply put, not a model that could be emulated because it would not enhance China’s security.

Perhaps one of the strongest pieces of evidence that supports emulation is the decision in 1954 to adopt the Soviet general staff structure. In 1954 and 1955, general ordnance, training supervision, armed forces supervision, and finance departments were added to the existing general staff, political, logistics, and cadre departments. When this reorganization was complete, China’s general staff was an exact replica of the Soviet Union’s. Yet two years later, in 1957, the Soviet system was dismantled and the eight departments were consolidated into three (general staff, political, and logistics departments), a structure that would not change for four decades. 173 According to an authoritative history, the Soviet system was dismantled because “the division of labor was excessively detailed” and perhaps too rigid for a military organization such as the PLA with a relatively lean general staff structure when compared with the military regions and field armies. 174

Similarly, China considered but ultimately rejected the new Soviet command structure adopted in 1954. In the Chinese civil war, the PLA developed a tradition of dual command, in which both a unit’s commander and the top political officer possessed decision-making authority. In 1953, however, when considering how to revise regulations for political work, Peng contemplated instituting the “single command system” ( yi zhang zhi ), as used by the Soviets, in all battalions and companies. 175 This proposal immediately generated controversy because it threatened the position of political commissars and was seen as inconsistent with the PLA’s “glorious tradition.” When the CMC issued new political work regulations in 1954, the Soviet command system was not adopted and the dual command system was preserved. 176

Finally, China moved away from using Soviet rules and regulations to govern routine and other activities. In the PLA, these rules are contained in the common regulations for service, drills, and discipline. Although the PLA had versions of these regulations before 1949, the 1953 revisions borrowed heavily from those used in the Soviet Union. 177 A year later, however, senior military officers acknowledged that the implementation of these regulations, especially those covering discipline, were at odds with the PLA’s grassroots traditions and “internal democracy” and thus viewed as damaging the unity among officers and soldiers that characterized the PLA during the civil war. This is perhaps unsurprising, as the Soviet military was much more hierarchical than the PLA and depended upon strict punishments, such as confinement, to enforce discipline among the troops. By late 1956, after reading a report from the General Political Department (GPD) on the implementation of disciplinary regulations, Peng concluded that they were flawed, which affirmed the decision earlier in the year, discussed above, that China should draft its own regulations. 178 On August 1, 1957, the CMC issued new disciplinary regulations, which downplayed punishments and abolished the practice of confinement. On October 24, 1957, new regulations for routine tasks were also issued. 179

In February 1960, the CMC adopted a new strategic guideline. Although given a new label—“resist in the north, open in the south” (beiding, nanfang )—the content of China’s military strategy remained largely the same. The 1960 guideline represents a minor change to the 1956 strategy, with some limited adjustments in the deployment of China’s forces, but it did not alter operational doctrine, force structure, or training.

The 1960 strategic guideline was adopted following the political upheaval at the Lushan Conference in July 1959, which ended with the purge of Peng Dehuai. The meeting was originally convened to examine the economic policies of the Great Leap Forward, which were beginning to encounter difficulties. 180 Peng expressed his concerns in a private letter to Mao Zedong. Given criticisms that were already being raised at the meeting, Mao decided to attack Peng and quash all opposition by circulating Peng’s letter and making it the focus of the meeting. In the weeks that followed, Peng was accused of “anti-party crimes” and pursuing a “bourgeois military line,” which led to his removal from all party and military posts. Although other senior party members had reservations about the Great Leap Forward, Peng’s purge did not reflect disunity in the party. Mao achieved this goal by building consensus for the action among the party leadership at the conference. Few openly opposed the move .

Lin Biao, then a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, replaced Peng as the first vice-chairman of the CMC and minister of defense. During the Chinese civil war, Lin commanded the Fourth Field Army that played a decisive role in key campaigns in Manchuria. At Lushan, Lin distinguished himself by his own criticism of Peng and support for Mao. As other senior officers associated with Peng were either transferred or demoted, a new CMC was formed in September 1959. Lin Biao assumed responsibility for daily affairs of the CMC. In addition, Luo Ruiqing, then minister of public security, replaced Huang Kecheng as chief of the general staff. Soon thereafter, the CMC created two new entities. The first was the “CMC office meeting” ( junwei bangong huiyi ). 181 Given Lin Biao’s fragile health, this group would oversee the daily affairs of the CMC on Lin’s behalf. Importantly, however, it reflected substantial delegation of executive power from Lin to his subordinates and empowered Luo Ruiqing, its secretary-general. The second was the “CMC strategy research small group” ( junwei zhanlue yanjiu xiaozu ), with Liu Bocheng as director and Xu Xiangqian and Luo Ruiqing as vice directors. 182

On January 22, 1960, the newly constituted CMC held an enlarged meeting in Guangzhou to discuss the PLA’s strategic guideline and national defense development that would last for one month. One reason for the meeting was the CMC strategy research group’s study of how to defend against a surprise attack by the United States. This does not appear to reflect a change in China’s security environment, as such a surprise attack was first raised by Mao in March 1955, but it likely highlighted concerns about advances in US nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. 183 Another reason, however, was to determine the basic principles for integrating army building with overall national economic development, most likely because of the economic crisis being created by the Great Leap Forward. 184 A final reason was political. As Peng Dehuai’s biographer notes, when Peng was purged, his 1956 report on the strategic guideline “was negated” (bei fouding ). 185 The PLA could not continue to use a strategy that had been developed by a disgraced leader and therefore needed to adopt a new strategy. As the PLA’s new leader, Lin may also have wanted to have a strategy associated with his name. Thus, at the meeting, the CMC adopted a new strategic guideline under a “new spirit.” 186

Assessment of the 1960 strategic guideline is problematic for several reasons. No record exists of the speech in which Lin Biao introduced the new strategy, though all sources indicate that the strategic guideline was adjusted at this meeting. 187 In addition, no record exists of consultations between Lin and Mao over the content of the strategic guideline, or even Mao’s approval of the new guideline. 188 Nevertheless, available sources suggest that the 1960 guideline differed only slightly from the 1956 one in several ways.

First, the primary change was a shift in the areas where China would engage in positional warfare. At the CMC meeting, Lin Biao stated that “[we] should use the Yangtze river as the dividing line.” In the north, China “should be fully prepared and resolutely resist the invading enemy such that every inch of our territory must be defended.” In the south, however, “[we] can consider allowing them to enter and subsequently attack them.” 189 Specifically, China would continue to pursue positional defense north of Xiangshan Bay in Zhejiang province, just south of Ningbo. 190 South of this line, the PLA would use the principle of “luring the enemy in deep.” Thus, the 1960 guideline became known as “resist in the north, open in the south.” 191 In August 1960, the CMC clarified that it “would resolutely prevent the enemy from coming in from the north” and that the northeast and Shandong peninsula would be “defended to the death,” repeating language from the 1956 strategy. An enlarged meeting of the CMC in January 1961 further limited the area where China would “open” itself to an adversary. The meeting affirmed that the north would be “defended to the death,” the area south of the Yangtze River would be “defended tenaciously,” and the PLA could “open” only in Guangdong and Guangxi. 192

Lin’s new slogan did not represent a major change from China’s existing military strategy. The areas where Lin instructed the PLA to resist included the northern and eastern theaters that were identified as the primary and secondary strategic directions in 1952. Echoing the 1952 plan, Lin described the northern region as an area that China should “defend to the death.” 193 In May 1960, for example, Lin conducted an inspection tour of the Jinan Military Region, which included the Shandong Peninsula, describing it as an area to be held “at all costs” through positional warfare. 194 Peng had also viewed the south as much less strategically important than the north, as more than seventy percent of the ground forces had already been deployed in the areas Lin sought to defend. 195 Nevertheless, during a tour of Fujian, Guangdong, and Hainan in September 1954, Peng instructed local commanders to establish fortifications in key areas to prevent the United States from “driving straight in” if it attacked. 196 Peng’s secretaries speculate that these instructions formed the basis for the difference between Peng and Lin. 197 Regardless, Lin proposed shifting slightly more forces to the north. 198 He ordered the transfer of the Twelfth Army ( jun ) from Jinhua in Zhejiang province (south of Shanghai) to Subei in Jiangsu province (north of Shanghai). He also relocated the 127th Division on Hainan Island back to the mainland. 199 Nevertheless, these redeployments amounted to around only four divisions out of around one hundred on active duty at the time. Despite the new label, Lin’s actions affirmed Peng’s strategy much more than they challenged it .

In terms of the form of operations, the 1960 strategy slightly increased the relative importance of mobile and guerrilla warfare when compared with the 1956 strategic guideline. By clarifying that China should not engage in positional warfare south of the Yangtze (and later only in Guangdong or Guangxi), the 1960 strategy underscored a greater role for mobile and guerrilla warfare because a larger area might potentially be lost to the United States in an initial attack that occurred in the south. Nevertheless, the main strategic direction, where China expected an attack to occur, remained in the north and not in the south. Luring the enemy in deep was making a virtue of the necessity that the south was much harder to defend than the north.

Second, the PLA under Lin increased the relative emphasis on political work in training. During an enlarged meeting of the CMC in October 1960, Lin attacked Tan Zheng, director of the GPD, for not supporting Lin’s own efforts to increase the emphasis on Mao’s thought in political work. 200 Yet Lin remained committed to giving priority to the military component of training, stating that “60 to 70 and even 80 percent of [training time] should be spent on military training”—roughly the same percentages as under Peng. 201 Again, these efforts are perhaps best interpreted as an effort to distinguish Lin’s leadership of the CMC from Peng’s, even though the substance remained similar. According to one prominent strategist from AMS, the 1960 strategy contained only “limited adjustments and additions” ( jubu tiaozheng he buchong ) to the 1956 strategy. 202 The primary strategic direction, as well as the basis of preparations for military struggle and main form of operations, remained the same. 203

Discussion of an army-wide operations plan in 1961 demonstrates how little China’s operational doctrine had changed under Lin Biao. The plan reflected continuity with Peng’s approach more than two years after the Lushan Conference and was based on the worst-case assumption of a major war in which the adversary would strive for a quick resolution. The decisive counterattack would occur on Chinese territory. Strategic reserves would play a key role along with rapid mobilization. 204 An operations plans research small group ( zuozhan jihua yanjiu xiaozu ) formed in December 1960 discussed an army-wide operations plan from early to mid-July 1961 and then submitted a report to the Central Committee and CMC. 205

The drafting of China’s first generation of combat regulations offers another indicator of continuity with the 1956 guidelines. Although the first two regulations were issued in 1961, more than a year after Lin Biao replaced Peng, the framework for the content of the regulations remained unchanged. 206 No source indicates that the content or drafting process was significantly altered by either Peng’s removal from office or the adoption of the 1960 strategic guideline. The content of the eighteen regulations that were published between 1961 and 1965 emphasized how to conduct combined arms operations, as Peng himself had envisioned. 207

The 1960 strategic guideline did not call for a major change in either the PLA’s force structure or in how units should be equipped. During an October 1960 enlarged meeting, the CMC drafted an eight-year plan for the PLA’s organization and equipment. The plan reflects continuity with the 1956 strategy, which had envisioned equipping the force with modern weapons by 1967. 208 It called for strengthening China’s defense industrial base while prioritizing the development of the air force over the navy. In the ground forces, the development of combat arms over light infantry units was prioritized. 209 In this spirit, Nie Rongzhen in February 1963 further outlined ambitious plans to modernize the PLA’s outdated equipment and envisioned arming the PLA with a complete set of modern conventional weapons before 1970. He hoped to equip the force with sufficient artillery and tanks while making breakthroughs in nuclear and missile technology. 210 The allocation of resources among the different services also remained unchanged. Under the 1960 guideline, modernization efforts focused on increasing the air and naval forces within PLA. From 1958 to 1965, the navy’s authorized personnel ( bianzhi ) increased by 51.6 percent, while the air force’s increased by 41.8 percent. 211

No new training program was issued after the adoption of the 1960 strategic guideline. One indicator of continuity in training comes from the curriculum of the Advanced Military Academy in Beijing. During this period, the bulk of the curriculum examined questions of strategy and operations, though political education was also included. The focus remained on training commanders serving in divisions as well as military region headquarters to command the services and combat arms. 212 In 1963, for example, the curriculum included the study of strategy, campaigns, service branches and combat arms, scenarios, campaign analysis, and foreign military studies. The emphasis on professional military training continued until late 1964, when Mao began intervening to change China’s military strategy. 213

The one significant change concerning training was an increase in the proportion of political training, mostly concerning the study of Mao Zedong’s thought ( sixiang ) and, especially, his military writings ( junshi zhuzuo ). This shift, although small at first, would become more pronounced after 1964. In 1961, the CMC instructed cadres at the division level or above to spend one- to two-thirds of training studying Mao’s writings. 214 At the same time, in response to the variety of threats that grew more acute in 1962, the CMC reoriented the training according to combat requirements, as discussed in more detail in the next chapter. 215

The strategic guideline adopted in 1956 represents the first major change in China’s military strategy. The content of the initial reforms that preceded the new strategy, as well as the strategy itself, all show that the new guideline was adopted to modernize the PLA so that it could face the type of war senior officers believed would occur in the future—one shaped by the lessons of World War II and to a lesser extent the Korean War. Remarkable unity in the party facilitated the adoption of the initial reforms and the 1956 guideline by insulating the PLA from intraparty politics. Left alone to plan how to defend China, senior military leaders, especially Peng Dehuai, sought to build a force that could wage modern, mechanized war against the strongest military in the world at the time.

TABLE 3.1. Projected Force Deployment by Type and Region in 1952 (Percent of Total)
Theater	Infantry Divisions	Artillery Forces	Armored Forces	Air Force Units
Northern	54%	83%	90%	60%
Eastern	16%	10%	10%	17.3%
Central Southern	16%	3.3%	0%	16%
Southwestern	8%	3.3%	0%	4%
Northwestern	6%	0%	0%	2.7%
Note: In wartime, the number of divisions in the northern theater would increase to 70 percent of all divisions. Source: Shou Xiaosong, ed., Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun junshi , Vol. 3, pp. 299-300.