China's Military Modernization: Building for Regional and Global Reach

(Hardback)

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China's rise to global economic and strategic eminence, with the potential for achieving pre-eminence in the greater-Asian region, is one of the defining characteristics of the post-Cold War period. This work offers a basic understanding of the military-strategic basis and trajectory of a rising China, provides background, and outlines current and future issues concerning China's rise in strategic-military influence. The next decade may witness China's assertion of military or strategic pressure on Japan, the Korean Peninsula, India, the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, Central Asia, or even on behalf of future allies in Africa and Latin America. While conflict is not a foregone conclusion, as indicated by China's increasing participation in many benign international organizations, it is a fact that China's leadership will pursue its interests as it sees them, which may not always coincide with those of the United States, its friends, and allies. Until now, no single volume has existed that provides an authoritative, comprehensive, and concise description of China's evolving geo-strategy or of how China is transforming its military to carry out this strategy. Fisher examines how China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) remains critical to the existence of the Chinese Communist government and looks at China's political and military actions designed to protect its expanded strategic interests in both the Asia-Pacific and Central to Near-Asian regions. Using open sources, including over a decade of unique interview sources, Fisher documents China's efforts to build a larger nuclear force that may soon be protected by missile defenses, modern high technology systems for space, air, and naval forces, and how China is now beginning to assemble naval, air, and ground forces for future power projection missions. His work also examines how the United States and other governments simultaneously seek greater engagement with China on strategic concerns, while hedging against its rising power. Although China faces both internal and external constraints on its rise to global eminence, it cannot be denied that China's government is pursuing a far-reaching strategic agenda.

Reviews

In this book, Richard Fisher focuses primarily on 'hard power,' the hardware and military strategies that the Chinese People's Liberation Arme (PLA) is bringing to bear on the Asia-Pacific region and world military affairs. He also does an excellent job discussing the doctrine, training, and operational plans to use this hardware. . . . Fisher has amassed a solid record related to military systems analysis. . . . Read this book. Buy it if you can afford it; but at least get your librarian to order it. Fisher has produced the best comprehensive study of China's military modernization in a decade. * Parameters *

Author Bio

RICHARD D. FISHER JR. is a Senior Fellow, International Assessment and Strategy Center (June 2004 to present) and the Director of the Center's Project on Asian Security and Democracy. He was formerly an Asian Security Fellow at the Center for Security Policy, editor of the Jamestown Foundation's China Brief, a Senior Fellow with the Republican Policy Committee of the House of Representatives and Director of the Asian Studies Center of the Heritage Foundation. His articles and reports have appeared in numerous national newspapers and journals.