underspin,
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PLA has been running thing since 1949. Their positions have been critical to major events, like the Culture Revolution and Tiananmen Square incident. The real question is whether the newer generation of military leaders is professional enough to behave differently, as OOE stated.
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critical, yes, but not complete control. this isn't the red guards we're talking about.
i would argue that on an organizational basis the PLA was less suspectible to personal politics than other organizations within the CCP. the CCP had learned its lesson well given the results when chiang kai-shek didn't crack down on personal politics within the KMT army. but in any case, yes, i do believe that the PLA has a ways to go in making itself fully professional.
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I can only make my point from a cultural point of view. As much as I hate it, guilty by association is a standard mindset in Chinese culture. This mindset reinforces personal loyalty, which in turn validates the mindset. You can actually see the current nationalism another expression of the same mindset: “We are all Han Chinese and we are all attacked.” I am still waiting for indications that military leaders will behave differently.
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i don't see how the current mentality is reflective of personal loyalty; that's just modern-day nationalism for you. in fact, if the standard mindset of personal loyalty were true, then we'd be seeing the warlord era all over again, not what we have today.