HISTORY AND FUTURE PERCEPTIVE OF CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONS IN CHINA

Abstract

This article examines how civil-military relations have changed in China. This is conducted in the context of long-term efforts to make the military more professional and to understand how civilians and soldiers interact today. Current analyses of Chinese civil-military relations have focused on the military's professionalization. However, the recent evaluations do not entirely include the lessons learned from past professionalization phases in the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) history. I focus on the continuity between different events in China's civil and military history by looking at the critical links that made it possible for military professionalization to change what had happened before between the Chinese Communist Party and the PLA. The potential impact of further professionalization of the PLA in contemporary civil-military interactions is also examined.