January 2012

Over the last year there has been an increasing emphasis on “social management” as a way of managing increasing social tensions in Chinese society. Indeed, the effort the CCP is putting into publicizing this concept underscores high-level concerns. Although these concerns cannot be attributed to the Arab Spring or other global events, such social movements certainly make the CCP leadership more wary about the ways in which external political changes might stimulate domestic incidents, especially given the growing role of social media. Although this emphasis on social management should not be seen as giving up on the modest efforts at political reform the government has been undertaking in recent years, it does suggest that the government sees other measures as more important in the short run.

Liu Yuan and Xi Jinping clearly share a great deal in common. Both were born to senior CCP cadres, and are members of the elite “princelings” cohort. Yet both men’s fathers were subjected to purge and mistreatment during the late Mao era, and both families suffered grievously. Despite these dark memories, both Liu and Xi went on to achieve rapid growth in their official careers, and have been outspoken in their extolling of the early years of the CCP revolution. As Xi prepares to ascend to the highest positions in the system at the 18th Party Congress, this article endeavors to profile Liu Yuan, identify his possible ideological and bureaucratic intersections with Xi Jinping, and assess the implications for PLA promotions and party-military relations in the Xi era.

In examining the origins, characteristics, and likely future course of a “more assertive” China, many analysts point to the supposedly growing role of the Chinese military (or People’s Liberation Army—PLA) in Beijing’s overall foreign and foreign-related policy process. For such observers, the PLA—as a conservative, highly nationalistic, and increasingly capable and confident actor in the Chinese political system—is the main, if not sole, force behind a range of more assertive and/or confrontational actions undertaken by the Chinese government in recent years, from the deployment and sustainment of large numbers of ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan to widespread cyber attacks on the U.S. government to official PRC criticism of U.S. military exercises in the Western Pacific, more vigorous challenges to U.S. military surveillance activities along China’s maritime periphery, and the testing of new weapons during visits to China by U.S. officials. In addition, some observers view the PLA as an interest group that pressures the civilian Chinese leadership to adopt a more assertive stance toward Washington overall, and in this way allegedly influences the leadership succession process. However, clear and conclusive evidence of the precise role of the PLA in China’s foreign policy formulation and implementation processes remains elusive. Indeed, very little is known about the decision-making structure and process of China's military-related policy in general, both in normal times and especially during political-military crises. In this article, the author attempts to summarize and assess what is reliably known, on an unclassified level, about the role of the PLA in China’s foreign policy and foreign policy-related policy processes.