IN-DEPTH BRIEFING // #91 // AUGUST 25
PART 1
AUTHOR
Philip Reid Visiting Fellow, CHACR
A MARCH WEST:
THE WESTERN THEATRE COMMAND AND CHINA’S POWER PROJECTION
O The Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research is the British Army’s think tank and tasked with enhancing the conceptual component of its fighting power. The views expressed in this In Depth Briefing are those of the author, and not of the CHACR, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Ministry of Defence or British Army. The aim of the briefing is to provide a neutral platform for external researchers and experts to offer their views on critical issues. This document cannot be reproduced or used in part or whole without the permission of the CHACR. www.chacr.org.uk
F the five regional theatre commands established under Xi Jinping’s sweeping reforms of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Western Theatre Command (WTC) is the least known to defence writers. Aloof from the partially-globalised world of the Chinese seaboard, it typically draws international attention only during confrontations along the Line of Actual Control between China and India. The theatre, however, also has a near-4,000 kilometre border with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as a 50-kilometre salient to the Russian Federation across the Altai mountains. The WTC abuts the Collective Security Treaty Organization – including Russian forces stationed in Central Asia, the
Commonwealth of Independent States Joint Air Defence System, and the US Central Command. Once the locus of nuclear brinkmanship, China’s formerfrontier with the Soviet Union has been demilitarised since a 1997 quinquepartite agreement. This depth has been the bedrock of all Chinese military strategy in the 21st Century, which is now focused on a ‘local war’ inside the First Island Chain. Three observable trends suggest that the status quo cannot be assumed in future decades. The first is a putative ‘pivot to Russia’ – alleged to be taking place under the second Trump administration and inspiring analogies with the 1972 Nixon-Kissinger mission that brought China de facto into the American system of Soviet containment. The economic and political strain on the Russian state is also inviting comparisons
1 // IN-DEPTH BRIEFING // CHACR
with the two fateful episodes of imperial disintegration in 1919 and 1989. The ‘Monograd’ rustbelt straddling the Trans-Siberian Railroad along China’s northern periphery has seen episodes of instability during the present conflict, these include protests against unemployment and conscription, as well as sabotage of the railroad. A third narrative centres on the assumption that China’s recent economic ascendancy in Central Asia will bring greater coercive pressure from Beijing. Popular ‘Sinophobia’ in the five republics has often been dismissed as a legacy of Soviet propaganda but, nevertheless, still resonated in the 2010s, with a new generation protesting the Chinese acquisition of land, resources and ecological abuse. China has traditionally framed its defence diplomacy in post-Soviet