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Islands, and reprimanding a former Japanese foreign minister at a confer-
ence in Singapore.^26 The CCP center is extremely lenient in its handling of
this sort of expression of PLA views. In 2005, for instance, General Zhu
Chenghu told a foreign reporter that in the event the United States inter-
vened in a cross-Strait conflict and attacked China with conventional weap-
ons, China should respond by being willing to sacrifice “every city east of
X ia n.”^27 Implicitly but clearly, Zhu was suggesting a Chinese nuclear strike
on the United States, moreover a first strike. The MFA explained Zhu’s com-
ments as “his personal views,” and several weeks later it stated that China’s
policy continued to be “no first use” of nuclear weapons. Regarding General
Zhu, five months later he received one demerit, which meant no promotion
for one year.
Two main factors incline the Politburo to be attentive to and solicitous of
PLA views on foreign policy issues. The first factor is the method of selecting
China’s—that is the CCP’s—paramount leader. There is a group of several
hundred people, civilian and military leaders at the apex of the organizations
that run Chinese society, who have an effective vote in what individual will
become paramount leader.^28 Top leaders of the PLA are among this “selector-
ate.” Ambitious CCP leaders who aspire to the position of highest power, and
to consolidate that power, need to pay close attention to PLA views. A second
major reason for the Politburo to heed PLA views on foreign policy is that
at some point it might again become necessary for CCP leaders to call on
the PLA to repress a challenge to the regime. A paramilitary People’s Armed
Police, initially set up in 1982, has been vastly strengthened for use as an inter-
nal stability force since 1989. Still, the multiple lessons of the years 1989–1991
indicate that the military is the ultimate guarantee of the Communist Party’s
dictatorship of the proletariat. Only with complete military loyalty to the
party is the survival of the regime ensured. Thus, the Politburo must pay close
heed to PLA views.
China’s Embrace of Marxism-Leninism and Its Quest for Modernity
A central aspect of the past century was a struggle between the philosophy of
individual freedom—liberalism—and its philosophical rivals. Fascism, which
saw individual identification with a racial or national community as the vital
aspect of human meaning, was one powerful challenge to liberal democracy,
defeated only with great effort. Today, in the 2010s, Islamism with its insist-
ence on the sovereignty of God, not of mere humans, is the most powerful
rival of liberalism. But the most powerful and long-lived challenge to liber-
alism came from Marxism-Leninism, or simply communism. For Chinese
patriots, communism had the potent advantage of imposing unity and order
on their chaotic land and quick-marching it toward wealth and power.