4.0

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Average Course Rating

This course is designed to provide an overview of the development of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 to the present, and to enable students to analyze Chinese military capabilities, evaluate the ongoing modernization of the PLA, and assess the implications for regional and global security. The course will build a framework for analyzing Chinese military and security developments by focusing on a number of theoretical and practical issues, including issues such as the problems of assessing foreign military transformation in peacetime; the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to assessing the capabilities of the PLA (such as by tracking progress in PLA capabilities over time, comparing contemporary PLA capabilities with those of the U.S. military, and evaluating the PLA’s ability to perform its missions); key events in the history of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), primarily since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949; modernization of China’s military hardware including conventional ground, air, and naval forces, nuclear and conventional missile forces, and space and counter-space capabilities;and the implications of China’s expanding national security interests for the future missions and capabilities of the Chinese military. <a href="http://bit.ly/1bebp5s" target="_blank">Click here to see evaluations, syllabi, and faculty bios</a>