Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) formally reorganized the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) under five “battle zones,” securing the last major piece expected in China’s biggest military overhaul in decades.
Xi, who also serves as commander-in-chief, presided over a ceremony at the Ministry of National Defense in Beijing on Monday to formally convey banners to generals in charge of the new zones, Xinhua news agency said.
The areas — northern, southern, eastern, western and central — replace seven military regions and unify the branches under a single command structure for the first time. The new commanders and political commissars for the five zones were also announced, Xinhua said.
Photo: AP
The regional rezoning was the last major component of a shakeup first floated by Xi more than two years ago and intended to make the world’s largest army better equipped to project force beyond the country’s borders. The overhaul comes at a time when China has become more assertive about its territorial claims over the East China Sea and South China Sea, raising tension with its neighbors and the US.
“It is designed to streamline command-and-control functions and organizationally restructure the PLA into a military better able to wage war in the information age and make it more accountable to the party,” said Andrew Scobell, a senior political scientist at RAND Corp. “It remains to be seen how successful the reforms will be and how long the reorganization will take.”
The creation of the battle zones “marks a strategic decision made by the party central leadership and the Central Military Commission with the aim of realizing the Chinese dream and the strong-army dream,” Xi said, according to Xinhua.
“All battle zones must unwaveringly listen to the party’s direction, insist upon the party’s absolute leadership,” Xi said.
Defense ministry spokesman Yang Yujun (楊宇軍) said in a separate statement posted online that China would maintain its “defensive national defence policy” and that the country’s development and foreign policy would be unchanged
Bloomberg first reported details of the plan in September last year, days before Xi announced the reorganization during a parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II.
The plan calls for reducing the 2.3 million-member PLA by 300,000 and redefining missions and responsibilities among the military branches, with the goal of building a fighting force that “can win modern wars.”
“The reforms will also increase CCP [Chinese Communist Party] control over the military, and Xi Jinping’s personal control as chairman of the Central Military Commission,” said Phillip Saunders, director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University in Washington. “The reform is bigger than I expected, and will be disruptive to the PLA until it is fully implemented, probably by 2020.”
The overhaul has been rolled out in recent months, including Xi’s announcement on Sept. 3 last year of the overhaul and troop reduction and the establishment on Nov. 26 of a joint military command that brought all branches of the armed forces under one roof.
Additional reporting by Reuters
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS