Table Of ContentForging China’s Military Might
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Forging China’s
Military Might
A New Framework for Assessing Innovation
Edited by
Tai Ming Cheung
Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2014 Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2014
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Forging China’s military might : a new framework for assessing innovation /
edited by Tai Ming Cheung.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 1- 4214- 1157- 6 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1 -4 214- 1158- 3
(pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978- 1- 4214- 1159- 0 (electronic) —
ISBN 1- 4214- 1157- 1 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 1- 4214- 1158- X
(pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 1- 4214- 1159- 8 (electronic)
1. China— Armed Forces— Weapons systems. 2. China—A rmed
Forces— Operational readiness. 3. China— Defenses—Technological
innovations. 4. Defense industries— Technological innovations— China.
5. Military- industrial complex— China. 6. China— Military policy.
I. Cheung, Tai Ming, author, editor of compilation.
UA835.F67 2013
355'.070951—dc23 2013013508
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Contents
Introduction 1
Tai Ming Cheung
1 Frameworks for Analyzing Chinese Defense
and Military Innovation 15
Tai Ming Cheung, Thomas G. Mahnken, and Andrew L. Ross
2 An Uncertain Transition: Regulatory Reform and Industrial
Innovation in China’s Defense Research, Development,
and Acquisition System 47
Tai Ming Cheung
3 The General Armament Department’s Science and Technology
Committee: PLA- Industry Relations and Implications for
Defense Innovation 66
Eric Hagt
4 Commissars of Weapons Production: The Chinese
Military Representative System 87
Susan M. Puska, Debra Geary, and Joe McReynolds
5 The Rise of Chinese Civil- Military Integration 109
Daniel Alderman, Lisa Crawford, Brian Laff erty, and Aaron Shraberg
6 China’s Emerging Defense Innovation System: Making
the Wheels Turn 136
Kathleen A. Walsh
7 Locating China’s Place in the Global Defense Economy 169
Richard A. Bitzinger, Michael Raska, Collin Koh Swee Lean,
and Kelvin Wong Ka Weng
vi Contents
8 Org a ni za tion as Innovation: Instilling a Quality Management
System in China’s Human Spacefl ight Program 213
Kevin Pollpeter
9 China’s Evolving Space and Missile Industry: Seeking Innovation
in Long- Range Precision Strike 241
Mark Stokes
Conclusions 273
Tai Ming Cheung
List of Contributors 281
Index 285
Introduction
Tai Ming Cheung
China’s leaders see science, technology, and innovation as essential ingredi-
ents in the pursuit of power, prosperity, and prestige. This is especially the
case in the military realm, where the possession of homegrown innovation capa-
bilities is deemed vital to national security. A concerted eff ort is now under way
to lay the foundations and conditions to meet the goal of China’s becoming a
world- class defense science and technology (S&T) power by the next de cade.
How successful China will be in this ambitious endeavor has profound impli-
cations for the rest of the world, and especially for competitors such as the
United States. If China is able to catch up and begin to match the technological
standards of other world leaders, this could lead to a destabilizing and costly
long- term arms race with the United States and other major powers. On the
other hand, if China is unable to narrow the technological gap and remains de-
pendent on external sources for critical technological needs, this will undermine
its ability to compete for strategic infl uence and safeguard its expanding security
interests in the Asia-P acifi c region and beyond. Most likely, though, China will
only be successful in a limited, although gradually expanding, number of niche
areas, such as precision- strike missiles, space and counter-s pace systems, and cyber-
security. China’s progress in these areas is already posing major regional military
challenges for the United States and its allies, which will not only become more
severe over time but will be coupled with China’s growing potential for disrup-
tive surprises in other areas, such as lasers and emerging technologies.
2 Tai Ming Cheung
This volume explores how the Chinese defense science, technology, and in-
dustrial base is endeavoring to transform itself from an industrial latecomer into
a technological frontrunner. While the nine chapter contributions from leading
and up and coming Western scholars and policy analysts on defense innovation
and Chinese defense S&T issues provide a rich and multifaceted range of in-
sights, they in par tic u lar address two research themes. The fi rst is an eff ort to
provide a framework for the analysis of defense innovation, which, as a concept
and subfi eld of study, has been hampered by a lack of common and detailed defi -
nitions about what it is, how it compares across countries, and what is occurring
in China. The second area of attention is the examination of aspects of the struc-
ture and pro cess of the Chinese defense S&T system that are critical to the devel-
opment of innovation capabilities but have so far been overlooked. These include
key organizations, industrial sectors, and policy initiatives.
The chapters in this volume were fi rst presented at a conference on the Chi-
nese defense economy held by the University of California’s Institute on Global
Confl ict and Cooperation (IGCC) in the summer of 2011. The conference was
part of a research project led by IGCC and funded by the US Defense Depart-
ment’s Minerva Initiative: The Evolving Relationship Between Technology and
National Security in China, which examines China’s drive to become a world-
class defense and dual- use technological and industrial power and the security,
geopo liti cal, economic, and technological implications of this transformation.
Defi ning and Applying Frameworks of Analysis to Chinese
Defense Innovation
A critical weakness in the examination of Chinese defense issues is that much
of the research output tends to be descriptive, non- theoretical, narrowly focused
on China, and without much comparative perspective.1 Moreover, with the rapid
pace of change taking place within the Chinese defense economy, studies done
in the 1990s and even the fi rst half of the next de cade look increasingly dated.
For example, one of the ground- breaking studies done by the RAND Corporation
in the early 2000s argued that certain parts of the Chinese defense industry
were beginning to make discernible progress in reform and modernization after
prolonged stagnation during the 1980s and 1990s. This was at odds with the
conventional analysis at the time, which was highly skeptical of China’s defense
S&T capabilities.2
The study of the po liti cal economy of Chinese defense issues has advanced
considerably since the late 2010s, although it is struggling to keep pace with the
Introduction 3
rapid changes taking place on the ground in China. More eff ort has been made
to apply methodological approaches from other areas of study to the Chinese
case, such as national innovation systems and or gan i za tion al models.3 There is
greater awareness of the need for more precise defi nitions of critical terms and
concepts, and more work is being done to compare Chinese defense technologi-
cal and innovation developments with other countries and to place them in a
more historical perspective.4
An important goal of this volume is to develop and make use of conceptual
frameworks of analysis from other fi elds of study to help defi ne the nature of
Chinese defense innovation, understand the key drivers shaping its evolution,
and locate China’s place in the sectoral, national, and global defense industrial
and innovation systems. These issues are explicitly addressed in a number of the
chapters.
In Chapter 1, on analytical approaches to defense and military innovation, Tai
Ming Cheung, Thomas Mahnken, and Andrew Ross5 put forward a framework
to capture the nature, dimensions, and spectrum of innovation in the military
and broader defense spheres, drawing from disciplines such as history, social sci-
ence, business, and strategic studies. The framework incorporates various lenses
through which to view the inputs, pro cess, and output of innovation: (1) the
components of innovation: technology, doctrine, and or ga ni za tion; (2) the ca-
pacity to innovate; (3) the pro cess of innovation: speculation, experimentation,
and implementation; (4) the degree of innovation from duplicative imitation to
radical innovation; (5) the scope of innovation; and (6) systems of innovation.
A key contribution of this chapter is the development of a rigorous defi nition of
defense innovation and the suggestion of a typology of diff erent innovation types
and how it might apply to China. Defense innovation is the transformation of
ideas and knowledge into new or improved products, pro cesses, and ser vices for
military and dual- use applications; and military innovation is intended to en-
hance the military’s ability to prepare for, fi ght, and win wars. Cheung off ers
seven types of imitation or innovation models that can be used to track the evo-
lution in China’s defense technological development, ranging from duplicative
imitation to radical or disruptive innovation. How states and their defense in-
novation strategies fi t into this typology depends on a few structural factors:
their level and approach to economic and technological development, their ex-
ternal security situation, and the nature of their integration in the global econ-
omy and technological order. In applying the framework to China, Cheung ar-
gues that China’s progress in the development of its innovation capabilities is
