China’s PLA is the armed component of the Chinese Communist Party since the 1920s. They fought against Chiang Kai Shek’s forces and Japanese forces with that. 1949, after they won against Shek’s forces, forcing them to lived in exile (Formosa, Burma), the party fully control the country with tangan besi; repression to stay in power, don’t ask about bottom–up, transparency, accountability, and democracy.
Looking at that, we can see that PLA is integral part of the party, even until now. Instead of under control of the state, PLA is under the control of CCP through what called as Central Military Commission of the Party. The Ministry of National Defense just have the purpose of ‘rubber stamping’, ‘formality’, instead of substantial control.
If you think PRC is peace loving, not gonna resort to military power, think again. How many military engagement they made during the Cold War, how many involvement their CMC involved now in their policies in 21st century.
And don’t think they are just an amateur with gun, no. They are not a joke. They even care more about military than Indonesia by how they made their new party initiative doctrine, not even any Indonesian political actor here have equivalent for that. They focus on economic and military capabilities building this time, but next up, they enforce their claim of international seas more real that no one can’t even say that as international waters anymore since it is de facto controlled by PRC, even though based on law (de jure) many consider it as international waters. They started to enforce their authority toward Taiwan which based on law (de jure) is part of PRC, since Taiwanese Government (ROC) is not even consider as country by many countries, including Indonesia, even USA and no Taiwan representation in UN.
By all of that highly possible conditions now, Chinese military buildup cannot be overlooked. Whatever the reason of the military buildup, we have to focus more for ourselves.