Relation With The Military
The relationship between the President and the military is more difficult to discern. The potential for conflict is lessened when, as during the Jiang era, the President is also Chairman of the Central Military Commission. However, there is a source of potential conflict when this is not the case, shown by the situation in 2003 when top Communist leader Hu Jintao was elected President without being elected the CMC Chair. In addition, most of the members of both the Party and the State Central Military Commission are uniformed senior generals, giving the People's Liberation Army a degree of autonomy. This autonomy, however, is limited by the existence of political officers.
In principle, when the President is also party general secretary, he could order the Party Central Military Commission to order the state Central Military Commission to do something; however how this would work in a crisis is unclear.
There have been proposals to constitutionally change the system of command to form a National Security Council, modelled after the National Security Council of the United States, which would give the President undisputed command of the military which would then be just another ministry. These proposals were not actively discussed because of opposition from senior generals. In September 2004, Jiang stepped down as Chairman of the commission, and President Hu Jintao became the Commander-in-Chief of the People's Liberation Army.
Read more about this topic: President Of The People's Republic Of China
Famous quotes containing the words relation with the, relation with, relation and/or military:
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one’s own.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“When needs and means become abstract in quality, abstraction is also a character of the reciprocal relation of individuals to one another. This abstract character, universality, is the character of being recognized and is the moment which makes concrete, i.e. social, the isolated and abstract needs and their ways and means of satisfaction.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The domestic career is no more natural to all women than the military career is natural to all men.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)