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PLA headquarters urge to cultivate commanders for joint operation
Chinese military research institutes have analyzed each of America’s conflicts since 1991 in great detail and recognized that the United States had demonstrated the ability to conduct joint operations with a degree of coherence and precision unmatched by any military in the world. China has learned from recent wars of the importance of joint multiservice exercises and operations combining air and ground forces (and naval ones in theaters like Taiwan) and is promoting “integrated joint operations” along those lines
The increasing reliance on these operations directed from the top and which are now being held all across China shows that Chinese leaders seriously intend to achieve Western standards of joint operations over time. This commitment also underscores the growing role of the PLAAF, which is one of the priority directions of Chinese defense spending in their most recent White Paper, along with the PLAN (naval forces) and the Second Artillery (nuclear forces). While those priorities underscore the centrality of the Taiwan mission in Chinese military planning, the capabilities developed there could, in many cases, be adapted for use in and around Central Asia if necessary.
Firepower Show of PLA “Joint Operations 2008″ exercise
