Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 3/5/2008
China’s New Military Elite
December 2007
Abstract
Analyses of the 17th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have largely focused on the policy and personnel changes taken at the leadership conference. Much less has been said about the implications of the massive turnover among the military representatives who sit on the Party’s 17th Central Committee (CC), including its powerful Central Military Commission (CMC). While generational turnover is leading to a new Chinese political leadership that is less technocratic and more broadly trained in economic and legal fields, the Chinese military elites on the Party’s top bodies are becoming ever more functionally-specialized in their areas of military expertise. Meanwhile, various forms of patron-client ties and political networks have played crucial roles in the rapid rise of young and technocratic officers.
