Ministry of National Defense

25 Huangsi Avenue,
Beijing  100011  
Tel.:  (010) 62018356  

The Ministry of National Defense under the State Council directs and administers national defense work. Its major functions are to be in charge of the building up of national armed forces including the structure and setup of the armed forces, military service work, armaments, education and training of military personnel, scientific research for national defense, the ranking system, building of the national defense reserve force and education on national defense

Beneath the Central Military Commission are the Ministry of National Defense and the Commission on Science, Technology and National Defense Industry (COSTIND) , which separately take orders from the Central Military Commission but had no operational control over the PLA. The Ministry of National Defense was responsible for military modernization and provided administrative support for the PLA. It was responsible for planning, manpower, budget, foreign liaison, and training materials, but it possessed no policy-making or implementation authority.

In any nation, the interrelation of the political and military aspects of strategy and national security necessitates some degree of military involvement in foreign policy. The military's views on defense capability, deterrence, and perceptions of threat are essential components of a country's global strategy. As of the late 1980s, however, little information was available on foreign policy coordination between the military and foreign policy establishments. The most important military organizations with links to the foreign policy community were the Ministry of National Defense and the party and state Central Military Commissions. The Ministry of National Defense provides military attaches for Chinese embassies, and, as of 1987, its Foreign Affairs Bureau dealt with foreign attaches and military visitors. Working-level coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was maintained when, for example, high-level military leaders traveled abroad. In addition, the Ministry of National Defense's strategic research arm, the Beijing Institute for International Strategic Studies, carried out research on military and security issues with foreign policy implications.

In the late 1980s, the most important link between the military and foreign policy establishments appeared to be at the highest level, particularly through the party and state Central Military Commissions and through Deng Xiaoping, who was concurrently chairman of both commissions. The views of the commissions' members on major foreign policy issues were almost certainly considered in informal discussions or in meetings of other high level organizations they also belonged to, such as the Political Bureau, the Secretariat, or the State Council. It was significant, though, that compared with earlier periods fewer military leaders served on China's top policy-making bodies during the 1980s.

Lines between civilian and military leadership and institutions in China are indistinct. All high-ranking military leaders have high-level party positions, and many high-ranking party officials have some military experience. When military leaders participate in national policy making, therefore, it is not clear whether their positions reflect PLA corporate interests or the interests of groups that cut across institutional lines. In general, in times where there was national leadership consensus on national policy, such as in the 1950s, the PLA was politically quiescent. Once the PLA was drawn into civilian politics during the Cultural Revolution, the military became divided along the lines of civilian factions. As long as the national leadership remained divided on a number of policy issues, the PLA, fearing factional struggles and political instability, was reluctant to leave the political scene. When Deng Xiaoping was rehabilitated in 1977, however, the stage was set for the withdrawal of the military from politics and a partial return to the PLA's previous political passivity.

Since 1995, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense has signed frontier cooperation agreements with the General Administration of Frontier Defense of the Russian Federation and the Administration of Frontier Guards of Mongolia. In January 2002, Chinese Ministry of National Defense and the National Security Commission of Kazakhstan signed the Frontier Defense Cooperation Agreement Between China and Kazakhstan. In April 2002, China sent a delegation to at-tend the meeting of leaders of frontier defense authorities of the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held in Alma-Ata.

In January 1998, the U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen visited China and the two sides signed the Agreement between the Ministry of National Defense of the People's Republic of China and the Department of Defense of the United States of America on Establishing a Consultation Mechanism to Strengthen Military Maritime Safety.

Minister of National Defense Cao's visit to Russia in December 2003 reinforced the Sino-Russia strategic partnership of cooperation. Military leaders of France, India, Japan, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Pakistan, Bangladesh and Thailand all visited China this year, which cemented the existing military ties.