Richard H. Yang - Böcker

China's Military in Transition is the most comprehensive study of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) ever published. Drawing upon a broad range of documentary sources and interviews, many of the world's leading specialists on the Chinese military provide in-depth and expert analyses of China's military modernization programme. This unprecedented volume covers many aspects of the PLA on the eve of the twenty-first century: party-army relations and the role of the PLA in domestic Chinese politics; the changing officer corps; the paramilitary People's Armed Police; troop reorganizations and the demobilization programme; the national security and defence policy decision-making processes; the military-industrial complex and defence industrial conversion; defence finance, budget, and training; weapons procurement; nuclear force modernization; threat perceptions; power projection capabilities; and the military balance in the Taiwan Strait.

As China is poised to become a global economic force, its leadership is on the brink of imminent and potentially sweeping change. With Deng Xiaoping's demise seemingly at hand, the inevitable redistribution of power within this vast land has become a crucial concern for China and the world alike. How will China cope with this changing of the guard? Will a centralized government remain, or will the country break apart? This comprehensive volume brings specialists from East and West together to assess the key issue of regionalism and its effect on shifting power in the PRC. Focusing specifically on the pivotal role of the People's Liberation Army, the contributors address a wide range of topics, including economic reform, the possible reprise of warlordism, and regional security, and they present a variety of case studies