Soldiers of Fortune: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Military-Business Complex, 1978-1998

Few published dissertations have much to offer to analysts of contemporary strategic affairs, but this one is an exception. Mulvenon, who works for the RAND Corporation and maintains an extremely useful Web site on Chinese military affairs (http://members.aol.com/mehampton/chinasec.html), concludes that Beijing's prodigious effort to wean the Chinese military from its participation in economic enterprise has succeeded only partially. Divestiture will take years to complete, but it has already begun to pave the way for a more professional People's Liberation Army -- a development that the author greets with both respect and some concern.