U.S. Army War College, 

The Heritage Foundation, 

and American Enterprise Institute

After the 16th Party Congress: 

The Civil and the Military

Compiled by

Mr. Andy Gudgel

The Heritage Foundation

Key Insights:

• Elder Chinese Communist Party leaders such as Jiang Zemin are 

becoming increasingly marginalized, while leaders of the “Fourth Generation” are becoming more prominent.

• The Chinese political system is becoming increasingly institutionalized. 

However, this process is not yet complete.

• There is growing separation between Chinese civil and military elites.

• The best way to describe China’s new military leaders is as “Techno-Nationalists”; generals with strong operational and technical backgrounds who 

have a great interest in modernizing the People’s Liberation Army.

• Several new concepts in Chinese military thought require further study by 

Western researchers.

Over 50 experts in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) gathered at Carlisle Barracks, 

Pennsylvania, from September 19-21, to attend the 2003 PLA Conference. Cosponsored by the 

U.S. Army War College, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute, the 

conference was titled “After the 16th Party Congress: The Civil and the Military.” 

The closing of the 16th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and subsequent 

personnel appointments saw great change in the civil and military leadership of the PLA. Former 
President Jiang Zemin relinquished all of the 

Party and State offi ces he held within the 

Chinese Government―save one. He allowed 

himself to be re-elected for another term as 

Chief the Party’s Central Military Commission 

(CMC). By retaining control over the military, 

Jiang effectively usurped the Commanderin-Chief powers of the new General Party 

Secretary and President, Hu Jintao. This has 

lead to uncertainty within China about the 

exact military chain of command. Additionally, 

military leadership within the CMC has passed 

to a new generation of less political, more 

practical, generals. This conference addressed 

the impact that these personnel and political 

changes have had on the PLA.

The Two Centers.

The PLA is currently caught in the midst 

of a succession struggle within the CCP and 

fi nds itself torn between the “two centers” of 

power in Chinese politics: CMC Chair Jiang 

Zemin and President Hu Jintao. While the PLA 

fi rst praised the continued leadership of Jiang 

Zemin, articles appeared in offi cial Chinese 

military newspapers soon after, criticizing 

the strain put on the chain of command by 

having “two centers.” President Hu Jintao, for 

his part, has been either unable or unwilling 

to force a change in the status quo. The PLA 

remains caught in the middle. While originally 

the army of the CCP, the PLA is in the process 

becoming a more modern national army, and 

the deadlock between Jiang and Hu hinders 

military modernization on several fronts, such 

as budget and equipment procurement, in 

addition to chain-of-command issues.

In the past year, President Hu Jintao has 

attempted to strengthen his position politically. 

While not openly disagreeing with Jiang 

Zemin, Hu used events such as the SARS crisis 

to both bolster his position and garner popular 

support. While he has had little apparent 

effect on China’s National Security policy to 

date, by picking his political battles wisely, Hu 

has better positioned himself to affect it in the 

future. 

The struggle between Jiang and Hu is also 

played out at other levels through the use of 

supporters in the younger “Fourth Generation” 

of CCP leadership. A good illustration are the 

interactions between Premier Wen Jiabao and 

Vice-President Zeng Qinghong. Despite being 

old friends, Wen is a supporter of Hu Jintao, 

while Zeng’s loyalties lie fi rmly with Jiang 

Zemin.

As long as the struggle between the “two 

centers” continues, the PLA will have diffi culty 

in pushing measures it needs to modernize 

through the CCP bureaucracy.

New Central Committee and CMC Members.

Other personnel changes within the CMC of 

the CCP will affect prospects for modernization 

within the PLA. The great personal infl uence 

once wielded by the top levels of the Party 

(such as Jiang Zemin) is slowly starting to fade, 

replaced by more formal institutional authority 

based on position. Many of the new Provincial 

Party Secretaries selected at the 16th Party 

Congress have been promoted “up through the 

ranks” from provincial levels, having started 

their careers as local Party functionaries. 

Local and provincial politics in China are 

conservative, as Party offi cials try to avoid 

upsetting their constituencies. Additionally, 

many of the newly appointed Secretaries had 

their higher education interrupted by the 

upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, giving 

them a narrow world view. Looking at these 

two factors in combination, it is very likely that 

the newly appointed Secretaries have politically 

conservative outlooks. This conservatism will 

tend to slow political change in China, and 

hence limit the speed of PLA modernization.

On the other hand, the newly appointed 

generals of the CMC are younger, more 

experienced, better educated, and less political 

than their predecessors. Four of the six 

generals have previous experience working in 

Military Region Headquarters, while the other 

two focused on China’s military science and 

technical research, especially China’s rocket 

forces. Several of the generals are veterans 

of China’s 1979 confl ict with Vietnam and/or 

have had experience in PLA exercises directed 

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against Taiwan. They are more than capable 

of continuing the PLA along the previously 

established path of military modernization. 

Whether or not they are capable of dealing 

with rapid changes in the international arena 

and national security threats facing China is 

still unknown.

A New Old Concept in Chinese Military 

Thinking?

As China’s military continues to modernize, 

new concepts and currents in Chinese military 

thinking will appear. A possible example of 

this is the term Sha Shou Jian (Assassin’s Mace). 

A venerable Chinese proverb, Assassin’s Mace

is used to indicate a secret weapon or method 

used by a person or group to triumph over a 

stronger adversary. However, use of the term 

has increased in Chinese military papers since 

the late 1990s. Does this indicate an attempt 

by PLA strategists to “think outside the box” 

of ways of defeating a superior military force 

or is it a reference to a specifi c weapon or 

program within the Chinese military? The 

answer is possibly both. In low-level PLA 

literature, Assassin’s Mace seems to refer to 

unconventional tactics, asymmetrical warfare, 

and even “miracle weapons” that could be 

used to negate the combat and technological 

advantages of a stronger adversary (generally 

assumed to be the United States). At the same 

time, several pronouncements by high-level 

PLA and Party leaders indicate that concrete 

Assassin’s Mace weapons development 

programs exist. While the appearance of a 

“wonder weapon” on the battlefi eld could 

in fact give China a tactical advantage, the 

possibility that Chinese leaders, believing their 

Assassin’s Mace would give them a sudden 

victory over the United States, would be 

more willing risk military action is even more 

worrisome. Terms such as Assassin’s Mace,

that indicate possible shifts in Chinese military 

thinking, bear closer watching by experts on 

the Chinese military. Conference participants 

stressed the importance of demystifying 

the Assassin’s Mace concept and further 

improving our understanding of the term.

Conclusions.

The PLA continues to move along the path 

of military modernization. However, as it 

does, a number of factors affect and infl uence 

the pace at which this happens. Currently, 

the following factors are working to slow 

modernization within the PLA.

The fi rst is China’s perception of military 

threats against it. From the Chinese point 

of view, one of the major aims of military 

modernization is to be able to deter, or defeat 

if necessary, U.S. use of force in support of 

Taiwan. As long as Sino-U.S. tensions over 

Taiwan remain in the background, the Chinese 

military will have little need to speed up its 

military modernization.

A second infl uence comes from the Chinese 

economy. As China’s economy grows, 

government tax receipts increase, providing 

more money for the PLA to modernize. Were 

the growth in the Chinese economy to drop 

from its current pace, so too would the money 

available to the PLA to improve or replace 

old weapons systems. Additionally, Chinese 

leaders since Deng Xiaoping have emphasized 

economic development over military 

modernization, pointing more budgetary 

resources in that direction.

Political maneuvering within the civilian 

leadership as well as PLA-CCP differences 

over the aim of military modernization also act 

as drags on the pace of military modernization. 

The PLA currently doesn’t have a unifi ed chain 

of command, with no one person in charge of 

both the party and the army. This has increased 

tensions both within the CCP and between the 

civilian and military members of the CMC, and 

hampered communication between the two 

establishments. Under these circumstances, 

rapid military modernization by the PLA is 

unlikely.

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*****

The views expressed in this brief are those of the author and do not necessarily refl ect the 

offi cial policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. 

Government. This conference brief is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

*****

More information on the Strategic Studies Institute’s programs may be found on the Institute’s 

Homepage at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/ or by calling (717) 245-4212.

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