China's PLA Exhibits Same Weaknesses As Russia's Army

Russia's military has performed far worse than expected in Ukraine. This does not bode well for the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), which shares many of the same flaws, some of which are even more pronounced, such as corruption, politicization, reliance on hardware, and a lack of combat experience, argues Prof. Minxin Pei of Claremont McKenna College and a visiting fellow of the German Marshall Fund in the US in an essay for Project Syndicate.

Photo Insert: Despite massive investments in military modernization since the early 1990s, the PLA's combat competence and capabilities remain untested.

“As Russia’s war on Ukraine enters its fourth month, the endgame remains murky. But one thing is clear: Russia’s military has taken a beating from Ukrainian forces that, at the start of the conflict, were thought to be no match for it.

For China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which shares many of the deficiencies that are undercutting Russia’s effectiveness on the battlefield, this should be a wake-up call.

One such deficiency is corruption. Judging by the number of senior generals arrested for corruption in China in the last decade, the rot inside the PLA may run just as deep.

Shortly after Xi Jinping came to power in November 2012, he launched an anti-corruption drive that, by the end of 2017, ensnared more than 100 generals,” Minxin Pei stressed.

“One might be tempted to think that Xi’s campaign purged the PLA of corruption. But that is unlikely, given that the enabling conditions – including cronyism, lack of oversight, and secrecy – have hardly been eradicated. Beyond corruption, the PLA displays similar structural weaknesses to Russia’s military, such as an obsessive focus on hardware, lack of training that simulates real combat conditions, poor logistics, and a persistent failure to develop joint operational capabilities. Like the Russian military, the PLA relies on a rigid top-down command structure that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for lower-level officers and soldiers to take the initiative in combat settings. Another key weakness of the Russian and Chinese militaries is politicization. In fact, heavily influenced by the culture of the Soviet Red Army, the PLA is even more politicized than today’s Russian military,” he added.

A final key weakness shared by the Russian military and the PLA is lack of combat experience. Russia's military has fought only a few small wars in the last three decades, in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria.

This clearly did not prepare it to invade the entirety of Ukraine, as evidenced by its recent decision to limit its focus and objectives to the eastern Donbas region.

China is also suffering in this area. Since its disastrous border war with Vietnam in 1979, the Chinese military has not fought a real battle. As a result, despite massive investments in military modernization since the early 1990s, the PLA's combat competence and capabilities remain untested.

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