After 75 years, the PLA remains a key player

China's military, which marks 75 years in existence today, remains a key player with large -- and possibly growing -- influence over the civilian leaders, experts say.

The 30,000 peasants dressed in rags who rose in rebellion on Aug. 1, 1927, have now become the 2.5-million-strong People's Liberation Army (PLA), an organization that can decide political fortunes at the highest level.

"A Chinese leader needs the support of the army to stay in power," said Ellis Joffe, a professor of Chinese studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "The weaker the leader, the stronger the influence of the PLA."

This has particular significance since China could soon be ruled by Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), currently vice president, who many observers have said would be the weakest leader the country has had under communism.

Hu, widely tipped to become head of the Communist Party later this year and president next spring, has none of the clout of past larger-than-life figures such as Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).

Both Mao and Deng spent decades leading the PLA against Nationalist troops and Japanese invaders and were able to use personal ties with the top brass at critical moments later in their careers.

Hu, by contrast, is a career cadre who has never served in the armed forces and cannot count on their automatic support.

While the PLA is not known to have voiced opposition to Hu's candidacy for the leadership, it will demand extensive concessions in return for backing him in the years ahead, analysts said.

"The Chinese way is to respect authority," said Joffe. "But it will not be a free lunch, and Hu will have to work for it, by pandering to the military."

Even more than current President Jiang Zemin (江澤民), Hu will have to be a consensus-builder, drumming up military support at every twist and turn in the political process. That will mean yielding to the PLA in a range of areas, from key security issues such as Taiwan and US relations to arms control and the national defense budget, analysts say.

China's official defense expenditure -- widely seen as an understatement -- rose by a whopping 17.6 percent in this year's budget to 166 billion yuan (US$20 billion).

Crucially, bigger clout for the military might also result in increased political representation.

The PLA's formal influence in the Communist Party is at a historic low, with no men in uniform in the all-powerful seven-member standing committee of the party's political bureau, and that could change.

To get its way with the new leaders around Hu, it may be enough for the PLA to simply hint at its potential to tip the power balance in Beijing, according to analysts.

"In any internal conflict, the civilian leader who gets the support of the military will win," said Arthur Ding (丁樹範), a PLA analyst at the Institute of International Relations in Taiwan. "The military will become more powerful than before."

This does not mean the armed forces will constantly be pushing their own agenda, experts say.

"The working relationship between the military and the civilian authorities is quite smooth," said You Ji, an expert on Chinese military affairs at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

"The civilian and military leadership share a common goal of a China that is economically prosperous, politically stable and militarily powerful," he said.