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Perhaps the greatest difficulty in analyzing Communist China’s military capabilities is the lack of reliable performance data.  China freely shares posed and scripted images, but actual footage is all but impossible to find.  The infamous South China Sea collision in pursuit of a Philippine patrol boat did not reflect well of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, but the PLA’s ground forces remain a mystery.

That may now have changed, however.  A wealth of images have come out of the recent Tibet-to-Nepal flash flood and they are very informative.

Let us start with the Nepal side of the border.  Though China (which occupies Tibet) has the communications to do so, it did not send any warning of the flood, either to downstream communities within its territories or Tibet.  It is unclear if this was deliberate or a failure to obtain timely authorization.

Confronted with the fact of the disaster, Nepal’s emergency services and military forces immediately launched massive rescue operations, and also began compiling detailed lists of the rescued, missing and dead, which were continuously updated.  Nepal graciously accepted international officers of assistance and media had considerable access to the rescue sites.  As this video demonstrates, there is ample footage that showcases the dedication and professionalism of Nepal’s civil and military response.  

Nepal’s response is in line with what we have come to expect – heavy on improvision, emphasizing safety but willing to take risks to save lives.  Above all, it proceeds with a ferocious sense of urgency because the clock is ticking.  The first 48 hours of a civil disaster are crucial to ensuring as man survivors as possible can be rescued.  

That’s why China’s response is so remarkable. 

The Political Angle

China Observer is a Youtube channel I regularly visit, and yesterday they focused on this very topic, and raise an intriguing possibility: the PLA is in a quiet state of rebellion.  The slow walk was deliberate, as was the omission of serious air assets.  President Xi Jinping is purging senior military officers by the dozen and has completely gutted the main command node for the Chinese military, the Central Military Committee.  As I’ve outlined in my Taiwan invasion series, the CCP uses a divided system of command to prevent any one commander from having the ability to take control of the state.  This necessarily makes for slow action, but it also provides ample opportunities for subordinates to put sand in the gears.

If senior commanders wanted to humiliate Xi on the global stage, the spectacle of a tiny party of firefighters wandering up a barren riverbed two days after the disaster would do it.  So would obvious propaganda videos of guys in clean uniforms aimlessly digging dirt.

Using this lens, the contrast with Nepal was deliberate.  But there could be other reasons.

Preparedness Concerns

It is also likely that the PLA (and the National Armed Police, also seen in the video), are not kept at a high state of readiness for disaster response, and that their primary training revolves around riot suppression.  Over the course of this very wet Chinese summer, there have been several official films released of PLA troops sitting and eating, sleeping, standing in water, but not otherwise doing anything useful.  When they do seem to have a useful idea (say piling sandbags) they do it in the least efficient way possible, open each (small) bag by hand, then having another man shovel the dirt in.  There are much more efficient ways to deploy barriers using heavy equipment, and I cannot believe the PLA does not have access to them.  Similarly, the way to pass sandbags down a line is to drive a tractor loaded with them, not having soldiers for a daily chain passing one bag at a time down the line.  

It’s like even the commanders aren’t sure what to do and are instead doing what looks correct.  What Nepal was doing also looks correct, because it is.  

This would also apply to aviation, whether helicopters or drones.  We have no idea how frequently flight crews train, or how proficient the maintainers are.  What we do see are lots impressive formation flying for political events, and it is possible that Chinese pilots are simply not proficient in flying rescue missions at high altitudes in mountainous terrain.  

Risk Aversion

Totalitarian societies strongly discourage individual initiative and instead emphasize strict obedience. This leads to a passive, risk-averse mentality where doing nothing is preferable to taking a risk and trying something new. Innovation is equated with rebellion, and therefore strongly discouraged. Creative, free-form thinking are likewise considered to be dangerous.

The result is that only that instructions are always interpreted in the most literal, and low-risk way possible. Better to underachieve than go to far. It is entirely possible that the danger of a very public helicopter crash, or some other mishap was viewed as worse than rescuing lots of people. Better to just cover everything up.

Whatever the cause, that is exactly what China has done, and while we may never know the reasoning behind the PLA’s response, it does not bode well for any future great power confrontation.