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  • China's plans for leaner army

    China's Long March to a leaner army

    China says it is cutting 200,000 troops from the People's Liberation Army as it moves to change the world's largest army into a more modern and streamlined military machine.

    Chinese leaders have long recognised the need to trim down and sharpen up a 2.5 million-strong force that has traditionally relied on sheer weight of numbers.

    This year's American-led invasion of Iraq, with its use of precision firepower and information technology, has only served to remind them just how far behind they are.

    The latest cuts, announced last week, will focus exclusively on China's ground forces, according to Dr David Shambaugh, Director of the China Programme at George Washington University and author of a new book on China's military modernisation.

    The 200,000 job losses, to be implemented by the end of next year, follow the dismissal of half a million men between 1995 and 2000, Dr Shambaugh told BBC News Online.

    "But the PLA is still too bloated," he said. "These reforms are more a matter of aspiration than reality."
    About 80% of those losing their jobs will be officers, according to pro-China newspapers in Hong Kong.

    The army's song and dance troupes, who once provided the only entertainment available to China's masses, are also to be disbanded.

    Soldiers and people

    The Red Army, as it was once known, was always in the vanguard of Mao Zedong's communist revolution. Soon after the Long March - its epic tactical retreat across China in the 1930s - it began to develop its own huge bureaucracy and any number of ancillary services.

    When the army finally brought Mao to power, with the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, it had a strength of almost six million.

    Mao favoured a "people's army", based on huge numbers of soldiers to serve as cannon fodder and overwhelm the enemy. Even a nuclear war was winnable in this way, he said.

    While famously noting that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun", he also liked to portray the soldiers and the people as being "as close as the fish and the sea".

    Many would say the PLA lost any claim to be close to the people when it shot its way into Tiananmen Square in 1989. But in crushing the student-led democracy movement it won the gratitude of the party leadership.

    A sharp rise in military spending followed, with the purchase of a significant fleet of Russian-made fighter planes, bombers capable of mid-air refuelling, submarines and other weapons.

    Last week China tested the prototype of a new fighter jet jointly developed with Pakistan. Official reports say the Xiao Long, or Valiant Dragon, FC-1, will be capable of delivering short-range and other missiles, and will rival the US F-16.

    Taiwan still main target

    The leadership's highest priority remains to unite the island of Taiwan with the mainland. But the strategy for accomplishing this has moved away from the notion of sending waves of troops across the Taiwan Strait.

    A more likely scenario today, according to military analysts, is an air and sea blockade and the use of hi-tech missiles and even computer viruses to cripple Taiwan's economy.

    Recent arms purchases have been focused on the navy and air force, rather than the much larger army, which has had traditional primacy over the other two services.

    The quality and training of soldiers and general standards of equipment remain poor.

    And overall, China still has a long way to go to catch up militarily with the West, say analysts.

    "30 years behind USA"

    "It is at least 20 years behind Nato and 30 behind the US", Dr Shambaugh said.

    But the weapons build-up of recent years has attracted attention in the rest of Asia and contributed to an arms race. Countries in the region are uncertain how an economically stronger China will behave in the longer term.

    China's official defence budget is $22bn but outside observers say real military spending may be up to five times that figure.

    Reducing the size of the army will bring a lower wages bill but will also add to the unemployment problem already created by economic reforms.

    There are also vested interests opposed to any further moves to professionalise the armed forces or divest them of the huge business empire they developed in the 1980s.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3084436.stm
    "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

  • #2
    I love these sensational headlines without the understanding to back them up. Fact is that the PLA has not been meeting their manning requirements and alot of formations are under-strength, especially the non-RRF (former Category B) units. The 200,000 cut is positional cuts, not manpower. Real manpower cuts is estimated at 75,000 at the low end and 125,000 at the high end.

    What's left unsaid here is that the PLA is going to get alot, lot worst before it gets better. Anyone gone through a re-org? Alot of confusion, alot of taskings (old and new) to be done by way, way too few people. What's going to happen is that the most urgent things get done while the things that can be ignored will be ignored until 10 years down the line when you've realized you shouldn't be ignoring it in the 1st place.

    I can think of one US example - USArmy truck drivers don't get enough combat training.

    Comment


    • #3
      Good example.

      Ouch.

      Comment


      • #4
        To: [Officer of Engineers]

        agreed completely. If you think US truck drivers don't get enough combat training, the Chinese are going through ever worse.

        I have an uncle carrying the rank as Ser Col. ( equal of US Brg Gen. ) in the PLA as the second in command of an engineering devision. He says that all the training they get planned for their troops are basic. Those engineers really don't get much rounds to play with.

        kinda scary.
        "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed" - President Eisenhower

        Comment


        • #5
          An engr division? Don't recall that in Andy's orbat. The largest echelon that I recall is regt.

          SrCol as a 2IC would point to div. You sure that he ain't commenting on the engr regt organic to the div?

          Comment


          • #6
            To: [Officer of Engineers]

            not very sure. I know that he is second in command, and he should be a Sn Col.

            don't want to go into details. Not secure, and might bring him trouble.

            but what I can tell you is that his unit is indepent.
            Last edited by UnitedDiversity; 27 Sep 03,, 02:09.
            "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed" - President Eisenhower

            Comment


            • #7
              UD,

              Not questioning your source but just to provide some background.

              The largest engr independent units that we've know of and can confirmed are the RRF engr regiments assinged to the BJ, NZ, and SZ MRs.

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