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A Study on Deng Xiao Ping¡¦s Military thinking and practice 1977-1997

Deng Xiao Ping¡¦s military thinking and practice played an important role in upgrading China¡¦s national power. Having the interest of the whole nation and the defensive strategic thinking in mind, first of all, Deng Xiao Ping implemented military reform during the peacetime, which involved many aspects including politics (political party), economic reform, scientific and technical development, etc. and thus should be deliberated from an all-direction angle. Next, enlightened by the collapse of Russia, East Germany and Poland, Deng Xiao Ping promoted economic reform to ease the financial burden incurred from the establishment of self-reliant nuclear military strength in late 1950s¡¦ and early 1960s¡¦. Third, with his understanding toward the modern history of China, Deng Xiao Ping felt that the leader of China must play the roles of a neutral and arbitrator, so as to avoid any internal upheaval and vicious circle of conflict among political party, government and military. In view of this, all measures taken by Deng Xiao Ping during the period when he was in power were aimed to balance the powers among different factions. As a result, the political power shifted peacefully from the hands of soldier to the ones of civil officials.
In Deng Xiao Ping¡¦s early life, he was only a member of the political committee in the army and lacked of practical fighting experience. Therefore, his military thinking and practice were primarily from his observation of changes in external environment as well as the internal system reform under the circumstance of war. As to his reform thinking, it came from trials and real practice. He tried to find out the right ways on the one hand and corrected his errors on the other hand: He refrained the economic liberalization from overheat by political interference; controlled the military by the leadership of the party; balanced the military factions and have them curb one another in order to stabilize the military in the process of four major reforms. As a planner and leader of China¡¦s reform and opening up, a leader of seeking truth from facts, and a realist, Deng Xiao Ping paid much attention to the accumulation of materials, development of productivity, and strategic thinking for national defense. In his opinion, China could get rid of poverty only when the materials were accumulated to a certain degree and became a rich country with strong military power only when its building up of national defense reached a certain scale. To view from current international situation, any reform measures brought about by Deng Xiao Ping to cope with the change of international situation in his time had been proven to be in conformity with the trend of the powerful countries in the world if judging from their effects and results. In addition, the build up of China¡¦s national defense supported by his economic reform was closely related to the future development on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, so notice must be taken to such development from time to time. Maybe, Deng Xiao Ping¡¦s military thinking and practice can be used as a reference for any studies on the future development of China¡¦s national power.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0108104-111012
Date08 January 2004
CreatorsHsu, Hou-Ho
ContributorsTseng I. J., none, none
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0108104-111012
Rightsunrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive

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