When Beijing on Monday announces its defence budget for 2019, the figures are expected to fuel western concerns over Beijing’s growing military strength by continuing a 25-year run of increases that has made China the world’s number two military spender. But from within the People’s Liberation Army, the picture looks rather different.
The PLA Daily, the force’s main newspaper, ran a report last week scrutinising the military’s weaknesses, noting how in a recent ground forces exercise, the reconnaissance network link within the attacking unit failed to function properly, which would have left advance attack troops exposed to enemy fire. The article criticised the “chaos in command” at one battalion and revealed how another unit had mishandled technology, which prevented the battlefield situation map being updated.
The picture of a force struggling to master basic command and control tasks contrasts sharply with a developing western narrative about an increasingly dangerous PLA itching to fight.