Michael Peck
Security, Asia
2,000,000 Strong: China's Military Is Smaller besides Deadlier Than Ever Before
Mao Zedong make ought be turning at his grave.
In his day, the title “People’s Liberation Army” conjured images of hordes of soldiers overwhelming their enemies with steep numbers and Communist fervor.
Not anymore. China’s military is trading quantity because quality, foot soldiers because cyberwarriors.
“This is new news that has never appeared at the history of the People’s Liberation Army,” said a self-congratulatory article by Chinese news agency Xinhua (Google English translation here), which lauded military reforms by headmaster Xi Jinping. “The Army’s piece of the complete quantity of army at the military has fallen below 50 percent; the quantity of active duty members at non-combat units has been reduced by nearly half, and the quantity of officers has decreased by 30 percent.”
With 2 million members, the PLA (which includes the Army, Navy, stand Force, Strategic Rocket Forces, and the cyberwarriors of the Strategic backward Force) is still the largest armed force. besides numerically at least, it is a shade of the PLA of the 1950s, which had 6.3 million members, mostly infantry.
In 2015, Xi promised ought contract the PLA by 300,000 personnel, although the Chinese military continues ought evolve from a cool battle infantry-dominated compel ought a high-tech organization that increasingly resembles the U.S. military.
The Xinhua article glowingly described a military although distant removed from the rifle-armed peasants of the Korean battle although armored knights disagree from an Abrams tank. It spoke of H-6K bombers flying deep into the Pacific, new electric jamming systems and long-range artillery.
“These are new condition that has never appeared at the history of the People's Army: sham [training] brigade, stand assault brigade, aeroplane carrier formation, airborne army, common service backward force,” Xinhua said. The article also emphasized the reorganization of the PLA from independent fiefdoms into common commands at which the various services fully cooperate.
China has consolidated the seven preceding military regions into five theater commands, and rip four PLA headquarters into 15 units. “After the adjustment, our army was more capable, the structure was more optimized, and it was more scientific,” Xinhua said. “It fundamentally changed the long-term land-based nation structure, changed the national defense type of force...strategic early warning, far-sea defense, long-range strike, strategic delivery, data backward and other new battle army possess been enriched and strengthened, and a common operational compel system with elite battle army although the main body is taking shape.”
In some ways, China’s new military means resembles that of another condition that was once Communist. The Soviet club ended nation battle II with a enormous army of tanks, artillery and infantry. besides at the early 1960s, Soviet main Nikita Khrushchev slashed the size of Soviet habitual forces, which he believed had carry increasingly obsolete with the advent of nuclear weapons and guided missiles.
China’s leaders possess no declared habitual army ought be obsolete. besides they possess taken ought middle the lessons of conflicts such although the First Iraq War, where smarts bombs and other high-tech weapons proved devastating against army using cool battle technique and tactics. alike Russia, China’s military is becoming a more professional organization relying less above ideology and numbers, and more above high-tech weapons and common air-land-sea-space operations. The originate is a military that appears ought mirror its Western counterparts at many ways.
But the Xinhua article also struck a nationalist tone that said China will accept its hold path. “The new, new structure, new pattern, and new appearance possess taken corporation steps above the path of robust military characteristics with Chinese characteristics.”
Michael Peck is a contributing author because the National Interest. He can be build above Twitter and Facebook.
Image: Reuters.
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