12:24 GMT, September 2, 2009 “In the past 60 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the size of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is becoming smaller and smaller, but the battle effectiveness of the PLA is getting stronger and stronger,” said Chen Zhou, researcher with the War Theory and Strategy Research Department of the Academy of Military Sciences of the PLA, who was quoted in an article on the website of the China News Service.

According to Chen Zhou, to reduce quantity and raise quality is a basic principle for the modernization drive of the PLA. China declared respectively in 1985, 1997 and 2003 to cut down the number of the PLA servicemen by one million, 500,000 and 200,000. In late 2005, China accomplished the task of disarming 200,000 servicemen. Now the PLA maintains the size of 2.3 million.

Chen Zhou said that there were three objectives in the disarmament of the PLA in the past 60 years.

The first objective was to optimize the structure of the services and arms by cutting down Army troop units with backward equipment and technologies and strengthening the construction of the Navy, the Air Force and the Second Artillery Force (SAF). By optimizing the establishment within the troops and the size and structure of the services and arms, the proportion of the high-tech troops of the PLA has been increased.

The second objective was to reform the leading and command system by downsizing the organs at and above army corps level and the subordinated units, reducing the command levels and improving the command systems. Especially, the leading and command systems of the general headquarters/departments of the PLA have been improved through adjusting the functions of relevant departments of the general headquarters/departments of the PLA and the function of joint operation command.

The third objective was to improve the proportion of officers and men. By simplifying the organs, the number of deputy leading officers was reduced and the posts originally occupied by some officers were replaced by non-commissioned officers (NCO) or employed civilian personnel. Consequently, the number of military officers has been reduced remarkably. When downsizing 200,000 servicemen in 2003, 170,000 of them were officers.

On the basis of reasonably and effectively streamlining, the PLA is getting more powerful in its battle effectiveness while the size of the PLA is becoming smaller. Chen Zhou holds that the battle effectiveness of the PLA is reflected in the following 5 aspects:

The first aspect is the modernization of weapons and equipment. According to the demand of the national security and the military strategic guideline, it is imperative to formulate a scientific and complete long-term development plan for weapons and equipment, so as to initially form a highly-efficient and generally-optimized weapons and equipment system with an appropriate size and a reasonable structure.

The second aspect is the modernization of organizational structure of the military. It is necessary to focus on straightening out the leading and command system, support system and various ratios such as the ratio between officers and men, the ratio between leading bodies and military academies and troop units and the ratio between services and arms.

The third aspect is the modernization of military personnel. It is imperative to cultivate talents capable of winning information-based war and carrying out information-based construction. Chen Zhou said that the PLA has signed agreements with more than 100 civil higher learning institutions in the country to cultivate national defense students and the PLA also insists on taking the military training as a basic way for raising the battle effectiveness in peace time.

The fourth aspect is to raise the core capability of winning information-based war. The core capability refers to the capability of safeguarding the unity of the motherland and opposing separation.

The fifth aspect is to raise the capability of implementing military operations other than war (MOOTW). The PLA has shown the capability in such actions as escorting merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off the Somali coast, UN peacekeeping, joint military exercises, fighting against natural disasters like flood control and earthquake rescue.


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Zhang Weiran