As I've noted, defense of the Chinese Communist Party is the Chinese military's primary job. The primacy of party over nation is clearest when you note that Russia's communists gave up large amounts of Russian territory to Germany in 1918 in order to preserve the new Bolshevik government.
China will integrate their threat responses to domestic and foreign threats:
China's decision to create a state security committee to oversee its vast security agencies appears to reflect a desire by Beijing to do a better job of dealing with domestic and foreign challenges.
In a Tuesday communique, the ruling Communist Party ended a four-day policy meeting by saying it will set up a state security committee for the first time in order to "perfect the national security system ... and strategy."
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang elaborated on that in a Wednesday briefing, saying the committee will deal with "all forces attempting to threaten China's security" and make them "nervous." He said those forces include "terrorists," "separatists," and "extremists." ...
The Communist Party communique also left open the possibility that the new state security committee will try to improve the handling of foreign security issues such as maritime disputes.
Already, we see China trying to make the South China Sea disputes an internal matter rather than an international matter.
This makes me nervous. If all events whether in Peking, Tibet, or abroad are viewed as a continuum of threats to the Chinese Communist Party, what might the Chinese do abroad if the threats to party control are something we might see as just an internal matter and nothing for us to worry about?
And remember that China has long viewed Taiwan as an internal matter rather than an international issue. Will all issues now be a potential spark for war?
If large-scale unrest--common enough in China--takes place and appears to threaten party control--could China initiate a war abroad believing nationalism will smother the internal fissures?
China could easily believe a quick sharp blow against our forces will discourage us from continuing the fight, and the national joy of defeating America would end domestic unrest at little cost to China.
We like to think that it makes no sense for China to risk their economic growth by going to war. We assume--perhaps rightly--that we'd beat China.
But if the Chinese Communist Party is willing to accept even defeat as the price for defending Chinese Communist Party control of China, they have an entirely different view of what is rational than we do.
Are we capable of analyzing China from the party's point of view rather than mirror imaging ourselves in their shoes? China gets to define what is rational for them, remember.
