중국군의 주요 약점; 인재 수급, 당의 우위

[위종민]

중국의 고령화 추세에도 불구하고 2030년까지 중국 인구는 미국의 3.95배에 이를 것이고, 중국 어린이들은 미국의 어린이보다 천식과 비만에 걸릴 확률이 낮고 국민들의 교육수준도 충분하다고 합니다.

하지만 인민해방군의 부패나 근무환경 등의 문제로 시스템 전쟁을 수행할 수 있는 정보화된 합동군에 필요한 이공계 대졸자를 중심으로 한 모병활동이 여의치 않다고 합하네요. 

또한 인민해방군은 '당군'으로서 전쟁이 아니라 중국 공산당의 집권을 유지하는 것이 목적이고, 그 결과 공적이나 실적보다 충성심을 우선시하는 군대라서 전시 효과적인 군대로 기능할 수 있을지의 여부가 불확실하다고 합니다. 지휘관과 동등한 권한을 지니는 정치장교가 여전히 부대마다 깔려 있고, 잠수함 함장은 부상 여부나 어부를 구출하는 지의 결정까지 잠수함마다 구성된 당 위원회의 승인을 받아야 한다고.. ㄷㄷ 

근본적으로는 중국 지도부가 미국과 대결할 의도가 있는지, 혹은 대만을 무력으로 탈취할 생각이 있는지도 불확실하고, 중국 경제의 쇠퇴가 이어진다면 인민해방군이 대외 전쟁보다 정권 생존을 우선시할 것이라고 예상합니다. 

아래는 이전에 올렸던 U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons에 올라온 논문입니다. 

When Computers Went To Sea | 중국 해군 잠수함부대의 인적 자원: 꼴찌가 가는 곳 - Daum 카페

중국 해군 잠수함부대의 인적 자원: 꼴찌가 가는 곳

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/could-china-win-war-against-us/

A boarding team members from the People's Liberation Army (Navy) Haikou (DD 171) board the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Waesche (WMSL 751) July, 16, 2014, during a Maritime Interdiction Operations Exercise (MIOEX) as part of Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise 2014. U.S Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Manda M. Emery.

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Not 10 Feet Tall: Experts Say China’s Military Faces Major Issues

Jan. 31, 2025 | By David Roza

While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite to fight and defeat the U.S. military in a conventional conflict.

Instead, two new reports from the federally funded RAND Corporation describe a PLA incapable of delegating authority to leaders who can adapt to complex, uncertain situations.

Part of the problem is how the Chinese public perceives the PLA. In their Jan. 30 report “Factors Shaping the Future of China’s Military,” senior international defense researcher Mark Cozad and senior economist Jennie W. Wenger wrote that the PLA “has struggled to attract top-tier talent, particularly from China’s best universities.”

Another part of the problem is structure. In his Jan. 27 paper, “The Chinese Military’s Doubtful Combat Readiness,” senior defense researcher Timothy R. Heath argued that the PLA’s primary purpose is not to fight a war, but instead to keep the Chinese Communist Party in power, resulting in a military that prioritizes loyalty over merit.

“The core of the PLA’s system of political controls includes political commissars, party committees, and the political organization system,” Heath wrote. “These controls are designed to ensure the military’s subordination to CCP authority, and all come at the cost of reduced potential combat effectiveness.”

People Power?

Like many other countries around the world, China’s population is rapidly aging and its economy has declined from the explosive growth of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, wrote Cozad and Wenger. 

Still, China’s overall population, both young and old, is predicted to be 3.95 times bigger than the U.S. population by 2030. Chinese children suffer obesity and asthma at lower rates than American children; and the vast majority of young Chinese people have enough education to complete military training. 

Despite those advantages, it is unclear the PLA can attract the kind of workforce it needs to adopt the “Western or quasi-Western operational model” to which it has aspired since the 1990s, Cozad and Wenger argued.

“The PLA’s efforts to develop an informatized, joint force capable of executing systems warfare will require officers and noncommissioned officers capable of making decisions in uncertain situations and willing to exercise innovation and creativity in highly complex operational environments,” they explained.

Achieving that has proven difficult for the PLA. While recruitment efforts focus on young college graduates with science and engineering backgrounds, recent clarifications of the military’s conscription regulations “strongly suggest a host of problems with the PLA’s recruitment efforts, including corruption, forced conscription, evading conscription, and refusing to serve once recruited,” researchers wrote.

Life in the PLA is widely perceived as harsh, particularly for new recruits, and having few economic and social benefits. Many of its remote base locations are unattractive. Like the U.S. military, the PLA is investing in higher living standards, post-service employment, student loan repayment, and other incentives to try to draw recruits. Also like the U.S. military, the PLA is emphasizing psychological resilience and physical fitness to help recruits adjust to military life.

Unlike in the U.S. military, these changes “represent a radical change from an extremely harsh, authoritarian environment with rudimentary, spartan conditions for recruits,” researchers wrote. But even if these carrots help improve recruitment, it remains unclear if a capable, information-age force can thrive in an authoritarian state, they said.

The PLA’s goal “is a model that is suited to the general cultural, political, and social attributes of Western societies (which tend to be individualistic, democratic, and less hierarchical), not to the authoritarianism that is deeply rooted in China’s society,” Cozad and Wenger wrote. “Thus, China’s economic and social environment will likely limit the PLA’s ability to get the ‘right’ people in its ranks.”

Party On

Heath raised similar questions in his paper. Despite vast modernization plans and growing numbers of warships and combat aircraft, the PLA’s main purpose remains upholding CCP rule rather than fighting wars, he argued. Such militaries prioritize political reliability over the capacity to fight foreign adversaries.

“Coup-proofing measures, such as promotions according to loyalty instead of merit, the fragmentation of command structures, and highly centralized command and control networks, reduce the military’s effectiveness on the battlefield,” Heath wrote.

The PLA has not fought a war since 1979, but its exercises so far are underwhelming; Chinese media “is replete with withering criticisms of the military’s inability to execute integrated joint operations and its lack of combat readiness,” Heath wrote. 

Political commissars—military officers who specialize in politics and ideology—share coequal authority with commanders, which impairs decision-making, especially since anecdotal Chinese media reports show commissars lack basic military knowledge and are often not physically fit for frontline duty. 

Commander authority is further diluted by party committees, whose approval has been sought by commanders before surfacing a submarine or rescuing stranded fishermen, Heath wrote. 

“The necessity of seeking party committee approval for most decisions and the imperative of strictly implementing all higher-level CCP policies and directives raises questions as to how rapidly and timely decision-making can be during combat,” he said. “This system of approvals and top-down control also provides little incentive for commanders to act with initiative.”

Politics is also a significant factor in recruiting, where candidates are screened for their compliance with party values and directives. Corruption touches everything from defective weaponry to false training records and seems to be tolerated as the price of political loyalty. 

“The perpetually half-hearted and incomplete nature of structural reforms designed to improve combat readiness suggests that this goal remains a secondary priority at best,” Heath wrote.

Political Appetite

But even if the PLA were a more fearsome, battle-tested force, Heath sees no evidence that Chinese leaders want to risk a conventional fight against the U.S. over Taiwan. Amid a declining economy, senior leaders “scarcely ever” list Taiwan as one of the top threats to CCP rule in their speeches, focusing instead on corruption, unemployment, crime, and subversion.

Xi’s language about unification with Taiwan is “relatively formulaic” and consistent with his predecessors, and CCP officials have done little to rouse public support the way leaders typically do before a conventional conflict, he said. The PLA also seems uninterested in such an option.

“No study on how China’s military could defeat U.S. forces has surfaced in any academy affiliated with the Chinese military,” Heath said. “China’s military has not even published a study on how it might occupy and control Taiwan.”

There is likely a classified plan to fight the U.S. military, but the lack of any unclassified supporting research raises doubts over how robust that plan might be, Heath said. The researcher made similar points at a June 13 hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

“There is ample evidence that China’s military is enhancing its preparedness, but little evidence that the national leadership intends to fight a war anytime soon,” he said at the time. Military preparedness is the routine modernization all militaries pursue, while national war preparation involves mobilizing an entire economy for war, he said.

Instead, Beijing seems to prefer using its “ample economic, policial, and military means” relative to Taiwan to deter Taiwanese independence while waiting for a better time to resolve the island’s status.

Tensions could still worsen and lead to war, Heath warned, but if China’s economy continues to decline, the PLA will further prioritize regime survival. Governments around the world, including that of China and the U.S., are struggling to preserve their legitimacy, which means U.S. defense officials “should consider a threat framework that elevates a broader array of threats alongside the remote possibility of conventional war with China,” he added.

National Security

[백선호]

1967년 일본 아사히신문이 낸 책 '중국인민해방군'에도 홍(紅, 군대에서도 공산당에 대한 충성심이 가장 중요하다)과 전(專, 군대에서는 전문성이 가장 중요하다)의 갈등이 있다고 나왔습니다.

[위종민]

문혁 초입일 때였으니, 인물 중심으로 바라보면 임표 vs 팽덕회 간의 갈등이 있었고 팽덕회가 숙청되면서 '홍'의 승리로 귀결됐다고 볼 수 있겠습니다.

[Black Knights (윤재산)]

이러니 저러니해도 경제가 좋으면 지금처럼 선박ㆍ항공기를 풀빵찍듯이 찍어서 위협적일것이고 경제가 사그라들면 위협이 감소하는

[위종민]

미국처럼 조선업계 매출 95%를 군함에 의존하는 수준은 아니지만, 전세계 상선 건조 물량의 절반을 먹고도 수익 70%는 군함에서 낸다고 하네요. 상선에선 최대한 마진을 깎고 군함에서 일정 수익을 보장받는 형태인 것 같은데, 경제성장 둔화되고 정부가 보장하는 수익이 줄어들면 건조 페이스가 많이 내려갈 것 같긴 합니다. ( https://cafe.daum.net/NTDS/50q9/2673 , "The slide also includes a note about the relative "naval production % of overall national shipbuilding revenue" for each country, and that this is estimated to be over 70 percent in China. The stated estimated percentage for U.S. shipyards is clearly legible in the versions of the slide available online, but it appears to be 95 percent.")