Xi reforms military to ‘fight and win’ battles

Yogesh Gupta

Former Ambassador

In early 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping took over the chairmanship of a leading group on military reforms and declared that the country’s overriding goal was to produce a military that could ‘fight and win battles’. During the civil war (1927-49), China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was essentially a guerrilla force used by Mao Zedong to fight against the Kuomintang troops led by Chiang Kai-shek and those of the Japanese empire.

Xi had an ambitious vision for China’s rejuvenation, including the restoration of its ‘great power’ status. He realised early that in accomplishing this task, the modernisation of its armed forces would play a key role. After a thorough study and assessment, Xi announced a series of major organisational changes in late 2015. Seven military regions were restructured into five theatre commands (TCs) aligned against regional threats. Each TC was equipped with its own package from the army, air force, navy and conventional missiles. The PLA headquarters was given the responsibility to ‘organise, train and equip’ missions and their operational responsibility was devolved to the TCs.

A new joint command and control structure was set up at the apex level —the Central Military Commission (CMC) — to interact with the TCs to coordinate responses to regional crises and preparations for wartime operations. A Strategic Support Force (SSF) was established to provide command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to the TCs and oversee the space, cyber and electronic warfare functions. A Joint Logistics Support Force will furnish the logistical assistance to the TCs.

In restructuring, the army will lose about 3,00,000 soldiers, including the direct control of space and cyber units and the size of navy, marine corps and air force will expand. A second artillery force responsible for land-based nuclear and conventional missiles was renamed the Rocket Force and upgraded to full service status, equal to the army, navy and air force. The navy’s marine corps has tripled in strength from 12,000 troops earlier to about 36,000 personnel, distributed among the North, East and South Sea fleets.

In October 2017, the size of the CMC, the apex administrative body, was reduced from 11 to seven members. The service chiefs were excluded from the CMC to whittle down their powers. Two former members of the CMC, appointed during the years of former President Hu Jintao — Fang Fenghui and Zhang Yang — were removed on charges of corruption. A director of political work and a secretary of the discipline inspection commission were appointed to the CMC to signal the high importance attached to ideological indoctrination, subordination of the armed forces to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and enforcing strict discipline.

Historically, the power of Mao over the PLA was attributed to his direct command of generals and campaigns in wartime. According to Prof You Ji, who extensively researched this subject, Xi spent half a day every week in his CMC office and made 53 publicised appearances at military events during his first three years (2012-15) as the CMC chairman. No other politburo member was associated during his inspection tours of the PLA facilities or while announcing PLA reforms. Xi has installed his trusted lieutenants in the CMC to ensure that his instructions on reforms are faithfully implemented.

Corruption in the PLA had flourished, starting in the 1980s, when it branched out into business activities to generate more resources. After becoming general secretary of the CCP in October 2012, Xi launched more than 4,000 anti-graft investigations, resulting in the sacking of many high-level officers, including those who resisted his reforms.

Xi’s reforms have created a top-down model wherein he personally controls all power to declare war, deploy troops and decide the promotion of senior officers. His one-man rule will weaken the institutional oversight of the armed forces. Too much centralisation of authority and emphasis on political indoctrination will erode professionalism. Downgrading of the importance of several offices in the reforms process will affect the promotions of many officers, creating internal discontent. Loss of power of the services to the theatre commands in terms of resource allocation and influence will generate heartburn among commanders.

In their research monograph (2019), Prof Phillip Saunders and others of the National Defence University, Washington, say that education and training of joint commanders will pose a huge challenge, requiring considerable changes to education and training. Without cross-fertilisation with other armed forces, wherein such concepts have been tried and incorporated successfully, it will be difficult to achieve the required skills. Building a corps of joint force officers can take a generation.

Another big constraint is the quality of PLA personnel which is based mostly on conscripts, with a low level of education, from one-child families with poor motivation and lack of a tough mindset. Also, the lack of actual combat experience deprives the PLA of battle-hardened veterans, who could train its forces in the complex, real-battle conditions.

The Chinese armed forces are taking steps to overcome these constraints by participating in different exercises, multinational and UN peacekeeping operations, seeking graduates and more specialists. The PLA’s current focus is on winning short-duration, high-intensity regional conflicts against both larger and smaller competitors. The rapid growth of the Chinese naval fleet, including the planned acquisition of three aircraft carriers, numerous destroyers and submarines and the establishment of an overseas base at Djibouti and other ports, suggest that the PLA intends to project power and carry out sustained operations far from the Chinese mainland too, in future.

China’s present military confrontation with India in Ladakh provides an immediate opportunity for the former to test if its joint warfare model is working. Chinese land, air and SSF (electronic warfare) units have been exercising together in Tibet in recent weeks to launch joint strikes against potential targets. China is deeply unhappy at the setbacks suffered by its forces recently in the Galwan valley and South Pangong Tso areas. It is quite possible that Xi may order another deceptive attack in the near future against the Indian forces to prove his point that his restructuring of armed forces has been instructive in winning battles. 

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