South China Morning Post
MINNIE CHAN
6th September 2015
Retrenchment and early-retirement packages to be offered and two military commands to be shut down, sources say
Officers will account for more than half of the 300,000 personnel to go in President Xi Jinping’s plans to streamline the PLA, two sources close to the military told the South China Morning Post.
At least 170,000 officers, ranging from lieutenants to senior colonels, in the country’s land forces would be laid off after two of the existing seven military commands and three army corps were scrapped, one source said on Friday.
But the massive downsizing plans, exclusively revealed by the Post on Wednesday, were also aimed at encouraging pilots from the land forces to merge into the air force and navy, as part of the PLA’s drive to master joint operational warfare.
One of the sources said the People’s Liberation Army would announce some details of the downsizing as early as middle of this month.
Defence Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said on Thursday that the decision to shed 300,000 military personnel was aimed at further modernising and restructuring the army, and the lay-offs would be completed by 2017.
Each key military command has two to three army corps, with each corps having 30,000 to 50,000 troops.
Shutting down two military commands would mean the loss of at least 120,000 personnel.
President Xi Jinping views the parade on Thursday. Photo: Xinhua
The PLA has 18 army corps distributed among its seven commands centred in Beijing, Shenyang, Lanzhou, Chengdu, Jinan, Nanjing and Guangzhou.
Once the overhaul was completed, the PLA would be left with five key military commands, the source said. The 15 army corps remaining under those five commands would strengthen joint operational command by recruiting soldiers from the air force and navy, the source added.
Beijing-based military expert Li Jie said trimming the number of commands back to five “makes sense”, especially when compared to Russia.
“Both China and Russia are continental countries and face different kinds of security challenges from various directions on land,” Li said. “But Russia, which covers more than 17 million square kilometres of land, has only four joint strategic commands, while China’s territory is only about 9.6 million square kilometres.”
It was not clear which two main military commands will be affected.
A Beijing-based source said the Shenyang army corps would become an air commando unit, suggesting that more pilot teams would be formed.
President Xi Jinping inspects troops on Tiannmen Square. Photo: Reuters
He also said that two other army corps, one from Nanjing and the other from Jinan, which also command the North Sea and East China Sea fleets, would become marine corps.
With the exception of the Beijing Garrison, which is directly under the PLA’s powerful Central Military Commission and safeguards the capital, all provincial and municipal garrisons would be shut down, and 50,000 personnel dismissed.
As many as 100,000 troops from non-combat units, such as medical, communications, and artists brigades, would be cut, and 50,000 soldiers from border forces will merge into the People’s Armed Police, the sources said. All of those laid off would be offered good compensation packages, with 50,000 transferred to civilian posts, the sources said. Some would be offered inducements to retire early.
“The PLA’s land forces will definitely be the main targets for downsizing because it has more personnel than the air force and navy combined. This is not the right path for China’s defence strategies,” said Xu Guangyu, a senior adviser at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association in Beijing. “Because of its expanding national interests overseas, China’s defence strategies have shifted from ‘ offshore defence’ to ‘protecting both offshore and open seas’.”
All PLA units yesterday pledged their support for Xi’s downsizing plans, with the military publishing a commentary in its mouthpiece saying the plan had the backing of all major military units.
Read more: The radical plan to turn China’s People’s Liberation Army into a modern fighting force
