China's Use of Military Force: Beyond the Great Wall and the Long March (Cambridge Modern China Series)

About this book

Andrew Scobell examines the use of Chinese military force abroad as in Korea (1950) Vietnam (1979) and the Taiwan Strait (1995-1996) and domestically as during the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and in the 1989 military crackdown in Tiananmen square. Scobell warns that a "Cult of Defense" disposes Chinese leaders to rationalize all military deployment as defensive. However changes in the Peoples Liberation Armys doctrine and capabilities over the past two decades suggest that Chinas 21st Century leaders may use military force more readily than their predecessors.