As discussed by other chapters in the volume, Hu Jintao’s influence on certain areas of the PLA’s devel-opment since 2004 has been substantial. Most promi-nent among these is surely the promotion of the “New Historic Missions” for the PLA. More broadly in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Hu has aimed to promote “scientific development.” There has been a move to elevate that concept to the same level as Mao-ist or DengMao-ist influence, by including it in the roster of the Party’s leading ideology as in “with the important theories of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the ‘Three Rep-resents’ as the guide, thoroughly applying the Scien-tific Outlook on Development.”49 It is important to
em-are far more important to the PLA than those terms discussed earlier in this chapter. For instance, mea-suring influence by frequency of mention in China’s leading military daily newspaper, “scientific develop-ment” appeared in the text of PLA Daily newspaper articles 1,148 times in 2004, or more than three times a day.50 Similarly, discussion of the “new historic mis-sions” appears frequently in a wide range of official speeches and White Papers. In contrast, the concept of the three non’s appears much less frequently. Figure 4-1 compares the number of times each of the three non’s appears with the number of times the New His-toric Missions are mentioned in the full text of PLA Daily for various years.
Source: Data collected from full text searches of the Jiefangjun Bao collection in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) available from the Library of Congress.
Figure 4-1. Number of Times Each of the Three Non’s Appears with the Number of Times the New Historic Missions Are Mentioned in the Full Text of
PLA Daily for Various Years.
The basic picture is one in which the three non’s ap-pear in a dozen or so articles a year. But New Historic Missions dwarfed that number upon its announce-ment in 2004, and “scientific developannounce-ment” was sev-eral orders of magnitude more frequently mentioned.
Beyond frequency analysis, however, there is a more substantive, if indirect, degree of influence of Hu’s policies on the previously mentioned develop-ments in Chinese military thought. Hu’s signature and pervasive advocacy for “scientific development” in all aspects of China’s policy directly enables increased attention on the foundational elements of informa-tionalization. This relationship is clearly borne out in speeches by top military leaders and authoritative
“commentaries” in the PLA Daily.51 As a direct part of the implementation of Hu’s initiative, there has been increased emphasis on making PLAN training more scientific in nature, and in particular, an acknowledge-ment that doing so facilitates jointness and deepening of informationalization.52
The links between “scientific development” and
“system of systems” are quite strong as well. For in-stance, one article discusses Hu’s advocacy as head of the CMC, noting that he:
explicitly pointed out that the scientific development concept is an important guiding principle for strength-ening national defense and armed forces building, and that scientific development should be taken as the theme, quickening the transformation of the combat power generation model be taken as the main thread.
... For the development strategy, he further made clear the strategic objective of “building informatized forces, winning informatized warfare,” emphasized the enhancement of the system of systems operation capability based on information systems.53
Thus, in that piece, the link from “scientific devel-opment” through “informationalization” and finally to “system of systems” is clear and direct. One quite authoritative article goes even further, noting Hu’s direct advocacy for improving “system of systems”
approaches:
Chairman Hu clearly pointed out that it was necessary to promote a transformation of our military from an armed forces that was half-mechanized to an armed forces based on informatization that had composite development of mechanization and informatization and emphasized the need to improve capabilities in
“system of systems” operations based on information systems as the basic focal point.54
Similarly, “Comrade Hu Jintao stressed, the basic form of combat effectiveness under informationalized conditions is information system-based ‘systems of systems’ operational capability.”55 Other articles also make similar, if less direct, note of such linkage.56
That said, the evidence presented here does not suggest a deep engagement by Hu Jintao with the concept of a “system of systems” approach in military operations. The discussion of these terms in Chinese writings is often quite superficial and consists merely of acknowledgement of Hu Jintao’s admonitions to develop such concepts. Indeed, often the concepts are absent: one article which broadly surveys Hu’s contri-butions in military affairs area does not refer to a “sys-tem of sys“sys-tems” approach at all, and neither does an article focused on Hu’s contributions to the PLA Air Force (PLAAF).57 Nor does there seem to be a direct link between the concept of the three non’s and Hu.
But this may not be surprising, as those concepts are
so far down into the details of warfare that they would be below the attention level of top-level leaders.
Nevertheless, Hu’s advocacy for system of sys-tems, informationalization, and “scientific develop-ment” more generally should bolster the importance of those concepts within the PLA.