Quotes About PLA

Many PLA officers sent to Vietnam had fought in the Korean War, or in Mao's words, the war to "resist America, aid Korea, defend the homeland, and safeguard the country."18 The Chinese generals recalled their fighting in Korea as a heroic defense and a continuity of their own struggle against the world imperialism. Chinese history books portray China as a "beneficent victor" of the Korean War.19

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) sees U.S. battle networks—"which rely heavily on satellites and the Internet to identify targets, coordinate attacks, guide 'smart bombs' and more"—as its "Achilles' heel.

Two departments of the PLA—the General Staff Department's Third and Fourth Departments, respectively—are organized to systematically penetrate communications and computer systems, extract information, and exploit that information.15 It is far faster, cheaper, and more efficient for the PLA to steal new technology than to devote vast amounts of time and money to develop it.

In a relatively short time, perhaps a decade, the PLA Navy has made a transition from operating only around China's coast to a force that can conduct blue-water operations. China's navy is still no peer of the U.S. Navy, and it is probably inferior to Japan's. However, no other nation in Southeast Asia is able to challenge the PLA Navy currently.