Driving force behind China's key arms document

One of China's premier military strategists possesses an intellectual depth that belies his diminutive stature.

Chen Zhou, a military strategy researcher with the Academy of Military Sciences (AMS), has been a key figure of China's national defense whitepaper drafting panel since 1997, when the country decided to produce an inaugural document to illustrate its defense policy to the world.

His unique experience that combines field know-how and strategy won him a slate in the panel. In 1969, at the age of 16, Chen was enrolled in the army, starting as a marine soldier on landing crafts and then a coxswain.

Years later he became a tutor in a military school and spent a year studying philosophy at Peking University. In 1994, he became one of PLA's first batch of PhD holders in military science. In 2001, Chen spent a year studying international relations at Harvard University as a visiting scholar.

But the whitepaper was still a big challenge to Chen despite his vast experience.

"We spent months searching other countries' published defense whitepapers for reference," Chen recalls. He himself was assigned to translate the defense whitepapers of Britain, Canada and South Korea.

And that was just a tip of the iceberg. The process also involved countless sleepless nights, seemingly endless deliberation over an acceptable framework, and extreme caution in weighing every single word. "The process was as sophisticated as working on a carving and sculpture," Chen says.

These efforts have been paid off. On July 28, 1998, the State Council's Information Office released China's first-ever defense whitepaper: China's National Defense, covering China's security outlook, defense policy, arms control and international cooperation. The framework and name has been followed in later defense whitepapers, released every two years.

The whitepaper, designed to answer the "China threat" clamor outside and present China's military transparency, embodies the country's thinking on national security strategy and has drawn worldwide attention. For example, the annual US report on China's military power uses the whitepaper as a key source.

In Chen's dealings with foreign military experts, many told him that they had read China's defense whitepaper "word by word". When he studied in Harvard many fellow researchers often asked him to explain terms in China's defense whitepapers.

"Many foreign peers told me the content in China's whitepaper is solid and convincing and they welcomed China's progress in transparency," Chen says.

In recent years Chen has headed a delegation of Chinese defense whitepaper experts to visit several foreign countries including Britain, Sweden and Japan. In these trips Chinese military experts had "candid communication" with their foreign peers.

"As the country is opening up, the military needs a more open manner to face the world," he says. "Our military is doing so with greater openness and confidence."

It has been more than a decade since Chen was involved in the development of the first whitepaper. Every two years he spends one working on the draft of the whitepaper and almost half of the other on publicity. Soon, it will be time for the next whitepaper.

The work is highly stressful, as the drafters have to tread a thin line between transparency and secrecy, and try to follow a consistent defense policy while avoid repetitive wording from previous papers.

In the end of 2002 when that year's defense white paper was finished, Chen lost his hearing and was later diagnosed with nervous deafness.

"This job is about responsibility and honor on one hand and about sacrifice on the other," he says.

Looking to the future, the 55-year-old senior colonel says he hopes to have more time to conduct research projects that he is interested in. But the whitepaper will remain his top priority as long as he is required to do it.

"China's defense whitepaper 2008 will be published at the end of this year," he says. "It will show great transparency by presenting the new points in our defense policy and progress in our military construction in the past two years."

(China Daily 03/12/2008 page20)