"Unrestricted warfare" and the weaknesses of the Chinese military explained by a former PLA officer

Yao Cheng, a

former

lieutenant colonel

officer

of the Chinese Communist Navy Command, carried out a top-secret mission to smuggle a Russian Ka-28 anti-submarine helicopter from Laos to China in the 1990s. But due to an internal political fight over the power and to appease Russian recrimination, the Chinese

military

command sentenced Yao to seven years in prison. This experience changed his view of the CCP and he fled China. In 2021, he gave an interview and shared his inside view of the strengths and

weaknesses

of the Chinese

military

. Hello everyone. Welcome to my program. I'm Lei. Speaking of Chinese military strength, the West has two points of view.

One is concern about the capacity acquired by the People's Liberation Army or PLA due to its recent rapid growth. And the other opinion is that the EPL is a paper tiger. Mr. Yao said that although the PLA is militarily inferior, it poses a great threat because it will engage in an "

unrestricted

war" with its opponent. An example of this is the use of civilians as camouflage during combat. Speaking about the CCP's military tactics, Colonel Yao said that the CCP is ruthless and capable of doing anything beyond its imagination. Although it lags behind the United States in weaponry, its lack of respect for human life makes it dangerous and difficult to combat.

Mr. Yao said that to deal with the PLA, the West needs to understand the PLA's

weaknesses

. And there are several. The first is corruption. Corruption peaked during the Jiang Zemin years. Jiang cultivated his popularity within the military by hook or by crook. But Xi has been unable to make a splash because 1) corruption was widespread and 2) Jiang had promoted many

officer

s in the PLA. And military officers are loyal to those who promoted them. Xi Jinping was determined to clean up the Navy. During his time, the Chinese Navy spent a lot of money and built more ships than the United States Navy.

But there was a problem. Aside from corruption, the Chinese military's second weakness is internal factional

warfare

, which has affected its ability to carry out missions. According to Yao, military officials do not listen to Xi Jinping because they worry about his political future after seeing Xi clean up the Jiang faction. Many PLA officers are now watching. In addition to corruption and political infighting, the third weakness is unique to the PLA and the military in other communist countries. And this is probably the deadliest that his war with Taiwan can cost Xi. Colonel Yao said that all PLA military leaders who could win on the battlefield were those who took on both the role of commander and political commissar.

The military of the

former

USSR also realized this problem and forced the political commissar to inform the commander. But for the Chinese PLA, the political commissar has a higher rank than the commander because the Party leads the army and is always more important. For this reason, Yao believes that the Chinese PLA is ineffective. This is the first part of Colonel Yao's talk. In the next video, I will share his talk on the CCP's maritime strategy related to Taiwan. I made a video about Mr. Yao's experience in China and how he helped the PLA smuggle a Russian helicopter into China.

Here it is. Until next time, thank you.