The Chinese Military in National Security Policy-making

The political influence of the People’s Liberation Army within the decision-making process of the People’s Republic of China politics is persistently a focus of all sinologists. Nonetheless, the role actually played by the Chinese military in national policy-making is frequently overstated. The author of this paper would like to offer a perspective of this issue with certain aspects generally ignored by many China studies researchers. The author would like to scrutinize the involvement of the Chinese military in the national security policy-making from several different dimensions. What is the legitimate institution or mechanism for the People’s Liberation Army leadership to participate in the overall national security policy-making? Whether a collective Chinese military perspective does exist in the process of the national security policy-making? Whether the military professional viewpoint may have the position against party leadership? How the service rivalry exposed out of the military may shape the national security policy? The actual influences owned by the Chinese military professionals on the national security policy can be identified through the efforts of observations from angles listed above. The core issue of surveying the People’s Liberation Army’s authority on the national security policy may be the need to examine how the party leadership may effectively control the military professionals and its leadership. Whether the military professionals may only contribute their professionalism but never exercise their political aspirations during the security policy-making process is the key question that needs to be answered. The article would like to provide certain assessment on this aspect as its conclusion