Issues/Problems the PLA needs to address

I think some of the problems associated with the PLA have been overblown a little... The supposedly spoiled youth issue would be one of them, IMHO.

One such issue is how these spoiled kids would respond in time of danger. Time and again, we see PLA and PAP troops rush into harms way without hesitation in natural/men-made disasters. The most recent example would be the Tianjin harbor explosion. We saw how the first responders responded. We also saw how the firefighters who went to the site later on responded. These firefighters already knew what happened to the first responders and knew what could happen to themselves. Many of these firefighters were personal friends with the first responders. We saw text messages sent by the firefighters, which were literally the most simple form of their will. We saw them asking their friends to take care of their parents in the case of... And witness saw countless emergency vehicles and fire trucks rushed to the explosion site. So no one backed down and ran away after knowing what had happened to their buddies and fully aware of what could happen to them if they kept going... Yet, they kept going. So these supposedly spoiled kids responded to danger no differently than any other well-trained professionals in a similar situation all over world.

Another potential issue is how these spoiled kids handle hardship/pain. We can look at the V-Day parade. Most of the soldiers participating the parade were young kids in their early 20's. Obviously, they had to go through hard training to march in unity like that. We all saw photos of the training. It's no walk in the park. They were held at an extremely high standard, even a little ridiculously high standard if you ask me... It's also very boring. Unlike other type of training, the only task they had was "walking/ marching". So they had to spend months and months doing the same thing over and over... We also saw how hot it was on the day during the parade. People in the audience were wearing shorts and T-shirts, but still sweating bullets. Those soldiers had their full gear. Yet, no one showed even a hint of discomfort. We all know the stereotypical description of today's youth, something like a short attention span (possibly because of all the videogame playing, etc) and temper issues (spoiled kids throw tantrums...). Yet, we saw how they went through the hard training and thrived.

Upbringing is important. Yet, whether or not one can handle hardship/pain/danger is a personal trait independent of upbringing. It's more genetic. What I mean is that these spoiled kids may not be used to hardship and pain because they have not been exposed to it at home. So none of them will like it when they first join the military. So it's only natural that they complain a lot and many of them miss home. That's completely natural. However, how they respond to the harsh experience has absolutely nothing to do with their upbringing. It's all up to themselves. Many are more adaptable and can handle the harsh experience, while other tend to be less adaptable. The adaptability is a personal trait like someone is more optimistic than others. Spoiled or not...

Of course, it takes proper training to eliminate those less adaptable to changes and hardship. That's the purpose of training.

Yvrch said:

^^^ So Blackstone it then begs the question why do you think having a political commissar is a problem/issue for PLA to begin with? What are your thoughts and evidence for it? I'm just curious to know your side of the argument. So far I haven't seen any reasons/evidence you have given to it being an issue or problem to fix, rather than a postulation of what would happen when A says XYZ under certain circumstances.
I believe no army, none, is a democratic institution.

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I think China's army should be a national army and not a private armed force, and political commissars are instruments of Party control.

That's reasonable. Mind you it's not an adversarial debate, rather an open minded discussion.
I'm curious to know exactly what your political reasons are, even though I caught your drift, ie in an overall direction.

Tianjin explosion is actually a bad example and counter productive to your argument. Also bravery does not equate effectiveness. While I do not dismissed the bravery of many firefighters to fight the explosion/fire there have been numerous reports on the lack of prepardness/training and effective coordination in fighting the fire which fits into the gist of this thread.

I've seen and read that many firefighters actually made the fire worse by using water to extinguish a chemical fire. Many of these brave firefighters rushed in and fought using gut instincts and bravado w/o realizing there is a possibility or hazardous materials which proved fateful as it has since been reported that sodium cyanide, ammonium nitrate and sodium nitrate and many other toxic materials were stored. Many were hurt or killed due to lack of proper training, using the right equipment and lack or proper leadership and general chaos.

Yvrch said:

That's reasonable. Mind you it's not an adversarial debate, rather an open minded discussion.
I'm curious to know exactly what your political reasons are, even though I caught your drift, ie in an overall direction.

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We're drifting off topic, but your serious questions deserves serious answers. I see China becoming a democratic-meritocracy in about 50 years, or so. The CCP has delivered the goods to about 200 to 400 million Chinese people, depending on who you believe, and it's working hard to do the same for another billion more. In addition, CCP leaders (Xi Jinping in specific) said many times China needs democratic reforms. It's clear Mr. Xi means democratic reforms within the CCP, and not outside of it, but I think that's one of those genie out of the bottle scenario where once the genie is freed, no one could put it back in the bottle.

In short, I see a time in the future where China (politically) is a giant version of Singapore where there are free and open elections, but somehow a democratized version of the CCP wins most of the elections. Except in this case, the CCP wins because voters like the security, goods, and services it provides, and not because the Communists control the army. To bring it back to the original discussion, I see PLA political commissars as problems and not solutions because they are instruments of the current, non-demoncratically reformed CCP. Again, I see the venture as long-term affairs, and I'm against chaos and disruptions in China until it's ready for the sea change.

Tianjin explosion is actually a bad example and counter productive to your argument. Also bravery does not equate effectiveness. While I do not dismissed the bravery of many firefighters to fight the explosion/fire there have been numerous reports on the lack of prepardness/training and effective coordination in fighting the fire which fits into the gist of this thread.

I've seen and read that many firefighters actually made the fire worse by using water to extinguish a chemical fire. Many of these brave firefighters rushed in and fought using gut instincts and bravado w/o realizing there is a possibility or hazardous materials which proved fateful as it has since been reported that sodium cyanide, ammonium nitrate and sodium nitrate and many other toxic materials were stored. Many were hurt or killed due to lack of proper training, using the right equipment and lack or proper leadership and general chaos.

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I think in all fairness, as I understood what Vesicles was saying, young Chinese firefighters, who may represent Chinese youth in general, have all the same selfless qualities as those of New York firefigthers who went in just before the building went down. In those emergency cases, there are a lot of unkonwns that they weren't given the benefits of your 20/20 hindsight.
They have to act in the general confusion and heat of the moment. These acts are even more commendable as they knew there was a great danger up ahead and went right in to do their job nonetheless. What other human qualities humanity can possibly hope for?

kwaigonegin said:

Tianjin explosion is actually a bad example and counter productive to your argument. Also bravery does not equate effectiveness. While I do not dismissed the bravery of many firefighters to fight the explosion/fire there have been numerous reports on the lack of prepardness/training and effective coordination in fighting the fire which fits into the gist of this thread.

I've seen and read that many firefighters actually made the fire worse by using water to extinguish a chemical fire. Many of these brave firefighters rushed in and fought using gut instincts and bravado w/o realizing there is a possibility or hazardous materials which proved fateful as it has since been reported that sodium cyanide, ammonium nitrate and sodium nitrate and many other toxic materials were stored. Many were hurt or killed due to lack of proper training, using the right equipment and lack or proper leadership and general chaos.

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But that's not the argument about the PLA weakness though. The main argument is that these spoiled kids would turn around and run in time of danger because they have been spoiled. The main logic is that their unique upbringing (the only child in the family) somehow makes them soft and gives them bad character, which makes them cowards on the battlefield. My comments were directed to counter that argument. My point was that these kids, although spoiled, can still be brave in time of danger.

Most of the in-effectiveness exposed in the Tianjin explosion was caused by so many different things that went wrong. None of them was because of the firefighters were the only kids in their respective families. These kids, spoiled or not, had no control over the local/state govn't policies on how to store hazardous materials. These kids, spoiled or not, had no control over their training protocols. My impression is that these firefighters followed their protocols as they were instructed. By all account, they followed their instructions and protocols. The only problem was that the instructions and protocols were not effective. Again, these kids had no controls over these issues, whether they had been spoiled or not...It's not like they had been taught in one way, but they completely panicked and started to do something else at the time of the explosion.

We are arguing about whether being spoiled makes these kids lazy bums, cowards and unruly brats, basically people with bad characters. I think my examples show the exact opposite: they showed their true and admirable character. So in that sense, I feel that my example is appropriate.

kwaigonegin said:

Tianjin explosion is actually a bad example and counter productive to your argument. Also bravery does not equate effectiveness. While I do not dismissed the bravery of many firefighters to fight the explosion/fire there have been numerous reports on the lack of prepardness/training and effective coordination in fighting the fire which fits into the gist of this thread.

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Vesicles has already addressed this in a reply, but I feel the need to repeat what he said -- his post was entirely talking about the bravery and commitment of the firefighters in question and how they respond to danger and/or duty.

It wasn't about the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness in a particular situation, but rather addressing the stereotype that all Chinese youth are spoiled and thus incapable of rising to their duties in a time when it is necessary.

Blackstone said:

I think China's army should be a national army and not a private armed force, and political commissars are instruments of Party control.

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I think the entire discussion in the last few pages have made a convincing argument that the political commissars in the modern PLA do not serve the stereotypical view of political enforcement that you believe -- the fact that you still hold this position without any evidence to counter the assertions made by others is concerning.


I also am more than a little bit confused just as to what you believe the difference between a "national army" and a "party army" or "private armed force" is, in practice. In China, practically speaking, the party is the government, and a national army should be loyal to the government. In this case the government is the party, so I see nothing wrong with the army being loyal to the party.
If you truly are advocating for a "national army" then, by consequence, you're also arguing that the current political structure in China should be drastically overhauled as well in such a way where the party is not equal to the government... And that is a far bigger and more ambitious claim than simply espousing the idea of a "national army". Not to mention it is dancing over the line tending towards the political side of the spectrum of discussion rather than the military side.

PanAsian said:

If I may list what I think are likely areas of PLA deficiencies, some of which have not yet been mentioned:
- joint operations
- expeditionary operations
- operations within an alliance
- actual combat experience
- making full use of their high tech equipment, including C4ISR
- actual performance of such equipment
- lack of such equipment
- co-ordination between troops with and without such equipment
- speed, cohesion, independence, and decisiveness at all levels in its chain of command both military and civilian

Hypothetically a perfect storm testing the PLA in all these areas would be if a large scale armed conflict occurs in Central Asia and the PLA participates in a SCO operation to intervene.

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These are all far more relevant topics to the thread title, than the current BS discussions about political commisars and national army...

But personally I think this thread is kind of a no brainer; any half seasoned PLA watcher should be aware of the problems in the Chinese military, everything from having up to date equipment, using such equipment, greater integration of C4ISR, jointness, realistic training, and what not.
In fact, many of these issues are challenges that many military forces around the world all have to deal with.

The two solutions to all these problems, in my opinion, is money and time. Money to research, develop, buy, the equipment to outfit your forces with and also to allow your forces to train with them in a more realistic manner or even possibly use them in real world settings in a limited way. Time, to allow the experience to accumulate to develop proficiency through use, and through developing new variants of weapons or new weapons altogether.

Lacking time or money will mean you're in a less than optimal position to advance your own capabilities.