The Chinese Communist Forces’ Communications Intelligence and Security: Strategy, Technology, and Culture, 1930–1953
Open AccessThis dissertation analyses how the Chinese Communist forces used information technology to create intelligence advantages in their military struggles, a largely unnoticed subject in past scholarship. It reveals that effective communications intelligence and security operations, and their close integration with the Chinese Communist forces’ military strategies, were essential to the Communist forces’ effectiveness. Furthermore, the Chinese Communist forces developed strong communications intelligence and security capabilities through constantly learning and adapting in military-technological competition in both Chinese civil wars and in international conflicts from World War II to the Korean War. The dissertation shows that this conjunction of military strategies and military-technological competition also gave rise to a culture of intelligence in the Chinese Communist forces, which not only strengthened their communications intelligence and security operations but also influenced the power structure within the Chinese Communist Party.This dissertation forces a reconsideration of the Chinese revolution. By emphasizing the roles of communications intelligence and security in Communist military strategies, it challenges the revolutionary warfare framework of past scholarship that focused on the Party’s strength in mobilizing the rural society and assumed its impotence in technology. Through analyzing military-technological competition in internationalized civil wars and placing Communist documents into dialogue with archival records of the Chinese Nationalist, Japanese, and US Armies, the dissertation reexamines the Party’s military effectiveness in the global context of intelligence and information technology’s increasing importance in twentieth century warfare. Finally, the dissertation reinterprets Mao’s rise, and the formation of his charismatic authority, within the broad context of the Chinese Communist forces’ intelligence culture, which helped to form a coalition of strong commanders centered around Mao.
- All rights reserved
Notice to Authors
If you are the author of this work and you have any questions about the information on this page, please use the Contact form to get in touch with us.