The Chinese Communist Party’s first leader, Mao Zedong, once said that ‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’. Mao’s words echo a fundamental truth of China’s system of government — that the ruling party has its own military wing, the People’s Liberation Army. Soldiers in the PLA swear an oath to defend the CCP, not the Chinese nation, meaning that their primary task is to safeguard the interests of the party.
