ABSTRACT
Zhang Jingyi, one of China’s important civilian strategic analysts, observed recently that China was a Third World state which had to face 'certain superpower problems'. According to Zhang, those problems were primarily of a national security nature. Zhang noted that Chinese policymakers and analysts have focused on international factors. This chapter focuses on the view that various aspects of China’s national security policy can be understood primarily in terms of international, systemic influences. It then argues that any analysis of basic defense strategy must include a consideration of domestic budgetary issues, economic policy debates, emerging research and development capabilities, and defense industrial capabilities. National security strategies, force structures, and-in centrally planned economies-defense industrial investment and production should be closely linked to threat perceptions and analysis. The introduction of the household production responsibility system has resulted in abandoning large-scale collective agriculture.
