BEIJING, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Three top generals of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China accentuated on Tuesday to increase military preparedness against threats to national sovereignty. The PLA should firmly push forward military preparedness, increase competence to safeguard national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, said Guo Boxiong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), when joining a discussion on Hu Jintao's report to the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
"We determinedly oppose 'Taiwan independence' activities, and will never allow any one sever Taiwan from China in any name or by any means," Guo told the PLA delegation to the congress that opened Monday morning.
In pushing forward the Chinese-style revolution in military affairs, Guo asked the PLA to build digitized armed forces and try all out to win a war in the information age.
In the same discussion, Vice CMC Chairman and Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan said improvement of battle effectiveness is always the most important task of the PLA. Cao also urged military preparedness and better construction and management of the armed forces.
Unswerving efforts must be done by the PLA to obey the absolute steering of the Party, Cao said. "Any denial or neutralization of the Party leadership will be uncompromisingly fought against," he said, vowing that the PLA will discipline itself to orders from the CPC Central Committee, the CMC and CMC Chairman Hu Jintao.
Xu Caihou, also vice CMC chairman, asked the armed forces to grasp cream of the strategy set in Hu's report in which he said the Chinese "must make our country prosperous and our armed forces powerful while building a moderately prosperous society in all respects."

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...nt_6892653.htm

Divorcing these actions from political motives and looking at this from a purely military aspect, what threats does China face? I tried to come up with something and spent some time looking at a map and a few websites showing neighbouring countries capabilities and could find nothing. Anyone offer a different view on this?

No-one wants to tangle with China.

russia.....

Inferno, are you saying that China and Russia are antagonists?

The acquisition of Taiwan is something they take for granted in future.
Also they have the acquisition, whether as a territory or as a satellite/vassal state, of Korea in the books as well. Hence the whole history changing thing with "Koreans are just one of China's many ethnic groups," and the hijacking of Korean history (many which does take place in what is today north eastern China) as their own history.

the 13th redneck hit the nail on the head. China's primary objective is to regain (of course in their minds they never lost it) Taiwan. Next, to increase influence over Korea (I don't know if this has to be militarily though). Third, to defend against attacks by the United States and its allies (Japan and Korea).

Russia is also a definite threat. Historically, invaders have always come from the north and northwest, except for the Europeans. It's a very cultural Chinese thing to fear enemies from that direction (the Qing empire refused to believe the British were abusing them until it was too late because they believed bad guys could only come from the north).

That said, China has declared a huge program to economically boost its northwestern provinces. Ever since the days of Mao, China has also kept a lot of its military industries and reserves in the northwest (fearing a US attack from the east). Could the recent modernization plans also include strengthening their military presence up there, as they did in a similar campaign under Mao? Do they fear military advances from Russia? Who knows...