Xi stresses structural reform of military

China has been moving rapidly to upgrade its military hardware, but integration of complex systems across a regionalised command structure has been a major challenge.

The troop cuts and broader reform programme have already proven controversial, though, and the official People’s Liberation Army Daily has published a series of commentaries in recent weeks warning of opposition to the reforms. They have separate command structures, which has made coordination between the military regions hard.

China’s plan to reorganise the current military administration structure and command system, will not affect the country’s peace commitment and defence policy, an official said on Friday.

A new structure will be established, in which the CMC takes charge of the overall administration of the People’s Liberation Army(PLA) and the Chinese People’s Armed Police; battle zone commands focus on combats; and different military services pursue their own construction, Xi said.

Yang also said the termination of all paid services in the military is “an important decision” by the CPC Central Committee, the CMC and Chairman Xi to “purify the air” and ensure the PLA’s quality.

Asked about the military’s risk assessment on pushing ahead with the reforms, Yang said the Central Military Commission had meticulously deliberated how to introduce the plans to ensure the initiatives would be effective. “Under the leadership of the Party, the army has gone from small to large, from weak to strong, and from victory to victory”, Xi said.

Mr Xi re-iterated a September announcement that the military’s numbers will be cut by 300,000 personnel, but said that China was changing “from a large country to a large and powerful one”. That could lead to around 170,000 military officials losing their jobs.

Chinese troops number less than 3 million, after 10 reductions from a peak of 6.27 million in 1951, and would be reduced to 2 million under the reforms.

China has for the first time integrated PLA area commands overseeing India and Pakistan as part of sweeping reforms under which the world’s largest Army is to junk its Soviet-era model for a US-style joint command system to fortify the ruling Communist Party’s control.

The reforms were outlined after a three-day military conference that ended on Thursday. The meeting was mainly about China’s military reform.

“It will focus on removing institutional and structural barriers that had constrained military development to boost modernization of the military and cultivate the fighting capacity of troops”, he said. In its annual report to the U.S. Congress in May, the Pentagon said creating joint-command entities “would be the most significant changes to the PLA’s command organization since 1949”. Of its four existing headquarters – its General Staff, General Political, General Logistics and General Armaments departments – only the one for general staff would remain.