Kamphausen, Roy, David Lai, and Andrew Scobell, eds

KamphausenSummary
The volatile year just past will no doubt go down as a milestone for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and no less so for its People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Two major developments in particular have buffeted the PLA’s ongoing modernization and in the process created an especially fruitful environment for PLA studies. The first development has been the recent warming of relations between Taiwan and mainland China to a degree unimaginable only a few years ago. The second development has been the marked growth and diversification in active PLA missions in 2008, including those resulting from a series of natural disasters, the Beijing Olympics, unrest in China’s western provinces, and the fallout from the global financial crisis. This remarkable series of events challenged the PLA to fulfill a greater variety of missions than ever before and makes this volume’s theme all the more timely.
The title of this year’s volume, Beyond the Strait: PLA Missions Other Than Taiwan, does not suggest that the Taiwan issue has been resolved as a potential flashpoint or is no longer at the center of the PLA’s strategic planning, but rather that recent trends make the consideration of the PLA’s growing number and variety of missions other than its traditional focus on Taiwan of particular relevance. In 2008 The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) and the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) of the U.S. Army War College were pleased to welcome the Bush School of Government 2 and Public Service at Texas A&M University as a cosponsor of the PLA conference, which brought together more than 70 scholars and other close observers of the PLA. This volume represents the papers presented in Carlisle, PA, in September 2008, revised to incorporate discussion and feedback from conference participants.
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