China reorganizing military to close gap with US

[Theinquisition]

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/...th-us-1.391502

Looks like China is looking to start projecting power further into the pacific. Gonna be kind of hard with such a Tiny blue water navy.

China’s armed forces are undergoing a sweeping five-year reorganization aimed at creating central control over the military’s nearly autonomous branches and creating a more lethal fighting force to close the gap with U.S. capabilities, analysts say.

The restructuring is the most profound undertaken since the 1950s when Soviet advisers helped modernize the nation’s post-civil war military, changes that will likely challenge long-held assumptions by the Pentagon, according to David M. Finkelstein, director of the China Studies division of CNA, a Washington, D.C.,-based research center.

The reorganization, which officially launched Jan. 1, will fundamentally redefine the roles, missions and authorities among the services — particularly the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA — and the Central Military Command, Finkelstein wrote in a paper released Friday.

The changes include disbanding the country’s seven military regions and replacing them with joint-warfighting commands in charge of “war zones” or “theaters of operation.” Also newly formed will be the PLA Rocket Force, which will be responsible for the nation’s nuclear and conventional missiles.

“Should the proposed reforms be successfully implemented, the PLA will emerge as a much more capable, lethal and externally oriented fighting force,” concluded a status report on the U.S. rebalance to the Pacific by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.,-based think tank.

While the branches of the U.S. military have a certain degree of autonomy, China’s services have grown increasingly independent and even run their own moneymaking industries. There have long been concerns about the risk a major conflict could be set off by a miscalculation from a Chinese commander making decisions with little knowledge or control from Beijing — particularly during frequent confrontations over disputed islands in the South and East China seas.

Although much remains vague about how the restructuring will take place, China’s civilian and military leaders have recognized that its armed forces lag behind the U.S. military in important aspects.

The CSIS report said the PLA’s assessment of the Chinese military’s actual warfighting capability “remains quite negative.” The PLA has argued in published comments that its current command structure, modes of training, command-and-control systems and modes of operation are insufficient for modern warfare.

China’s current national command structure dates back to 1985, when it viewed the neighboring Soviet Union as the most likely threat.

“That structure has little inherent capacity for joint service integration and expeditionary operations; in fact, it is a key impediment,” the CSIS report said.

The United States took a major step ahead in integrating leadership of the services when President Ronald Reagan signed the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986. The reform centralized military advice in the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs instead of the service chiefs.

This appears to be the PLA’s own “Goldwater-Nichols moment,” Finkelstein wrote.

The current restructuring appears to be part of a larger political agenda masterminded by President Xi Jinping, who assumed office in late 2012. But while Xi had “undoubtedly approved the major contours” of the restructuring, Finkelstein wrote that he believed the essence of military reform “could only have come from within the PLA itself,” from “the professionals who have seen the need for change for some time.”

The reorganization carries political, institutional and operational mandates for the military.


Politically, Xi appears to be trying to make the military more “red” by re-concentrating power and authority over the armed forces by the Central Military Commission, which Xi chairs, Finkelstein wrote. The military commission is an organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Unyielding party control of the PLA “is viewed as a prerequisite for pushing through this reorganization and reform because so many institutional and personal interests throughout the military are going to be adversely affected,” Finkelstein wrote.

Many details about how the reform will look institutionally are unknown, but changes are expected to the logistics system, armaments, research and development, balance of forces among services, ratio of officers to enlisted personnel, location of force deployments, the military justice system and many other realms.

A new, independent layer of oversight over the PLA is intended to reduce the “rampant corruption across the officer corps,” Finkelstein wrote.
At the core of the operational reform will be streamlining command-and-control authority to better conduct “modern, information-intensive joint campaigns — especially in the maritime-aerospace battlespace domains, which are the domains in which PLA strategists believe China’s most pressing operational contingencies reside,” Finkelstein wrote.

To that end, China’s seven long-standing military regions will be dissolved, replaced by “war zones” or “theaters of command.” Warfighting command and control will go directly from those zones to the Central Military Commission, Finkelstein wrote.
There have been no official announcements about how many new theaters will be created.
Although the PLA Rocket Force will oversee the country’s nuclear and convention missiles, it remains unclear whether that responsibility includes the nuclear assets of the PLA Air Force and PLA Navy, Finkelstein wrote.

According to Xinhua, China’s state news agency, Xi said Jan. 1 that the mission of the rocket force was in part to “strengthen medium- and long-range precision strike force building, increase strategic checks and balance capability and strive to build a powerful modernized rocket force.”

The vast reorganization carries risk, particularly in light of China’s current woes with a plunging stock market and slowing economy. Party officials have made economic progress the linchpin of its governing legitimacy.
The military reforms will leave about 300,000 people out of jobs, and local economies could be affected as military regions are stood down, Finkelstein wrote.

The reorganization is slated to be complete by 2020, but it could take years longer to make such a new system operate efficiently, he wrote.
During the five-year phase-in period, the Pentagon will have to assess changes to and creation of counterparts between the two armed forces and whether ongoing programs and exchanges will be affected, he wrote.

[Independent voter]

They cut back on their spending this last year. They were increasing military spending like 20%, this year it was only an increase of 7-8%. China used to increase defense spending 15% or more.

Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament, told reporters Friday the military will see an increase of seven to eight percent this year.

The announced increase is the first time China’s spending on defense has slipped below double-digit growth in six years, and follows more than a decade of nearly consistent double-digit growth.

[Theinquisition]

They cut back on their spending this last year. They were increasing military spending like 20%, this year it was only an increase of 7-8%. China used to increase defense spending 15% or more.

Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament, told reporters Friday the military will see an increase of seven to eight percent this year.

The announced increase is the first time China’s spending on defense has slipped below double-digit growth in six years, and follows more than a decade of nearly consistent double-digit growth.

that's still a huge increase.

It sounds more like a large scale restructuring of their current military.

Kind of like when we went to the modular combat brigades.


Gnomophobia!!!

[Mihalik]

There are number of issues with the Chinese military that the Chinese themselves are keenly aware of.

1, The Chinese military is more of political tool than a fighting force. This has been the case since the Cultural Revolution where the military was the ideological strong arm. This creates the uncomfortable situation where the Chinese government has a somewhat indirect control over its own military. Little structural reform has happened there since.

2, Being an internal garrison force/party arm, the Chinese military is EXTREMELY bloated. Much of it Garrison forces, a lot are cushy political postings and so. Most of all that is barely trained, barely equipped and utterly impossible to relocate to where they would be needed. China needs to reduce the size of its standing forces, better separate the roles of internal state security and military and cut waste. Increased spending is not necessarily what China needs there. But rather smarter spending.

3, China really needs to get itself a proper centralized Command Staff. The fact that it still doesn't have one is mind boggling.

[Nynax]

David M. Finkelstein

Finkelstein

I cannot believe that is actually someone's name!!!

lol

[Hooked]

We need to sanction china and remove free trade with them.

[Mihalik]

We need to sanction china and remove free trade with them.

What free trade? Why sanction?

Your argument is basically this...

I have a sore throat so I should shoot myself in the foot and cut my balls off with a rusty razor, cuz that will fix it!

If you are genuinely interested in why US-China trade is good and important for the global and US economy and security I'll provide you with reading material.

If you want meaningless and inane populist one liners... Well go and listen to the US Hugo Chavez... Donald Trump.

[Clone]

We need to sanction china and remove free trade with them.

Don't be an idiot.

[Deleted]

Who cares if China builds a huge Military? They are making the same mistakes the Soviet Union did, learn from history and all that.

[Jtbrig7390]

We need to sanction china and remove free trade with them.

Its something special when such small amount of words can show such a high level of stupidity.

Yes lets end free trade with them and watch everything we buy go up 300% or more. There is a reason we have things like tv's and all so cheap. Take a wild guess why.

You do realize there is a thing called global economy right?

- - - Updated - - -

Who cares if China builds a huge Military? They are making the same mistakes the Soviet Union did, learn from history and all that.

The way I see it is, If its ok for us to do it its ok for them to do it as well. That applys to everything really.

[hzfafeao]

We need to sanction china and remove free trade with them.

Really? Are you serious? LOL

[Mormolyce]

We need to sanction china and remove free trade with them.

You do that! LOL.

[Logwyn]

Really? Are you serious? LOL

I think... they were joking... I think.....

[Belize]

I think... they were joking... I think.....

Hooked? Oh no, he isn't, unless it's the best kept alter ego ever.

[PACOX]

The Soviets tried that once.

Once.

[Kellhound]

They cut back on their spending this last year. They were increasing military spending like 20%, this year it was only an increase of 7-8%. China used to increase defense spending 15% or more.

Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament, told reporters Friday the military will see an increase of seven to eight percent this year.

The announced increase is the first time China’s spending on defense has slipped below double-digit growth in six years, and follows more than a decade of nearly consistent double-digit growth.

It is widely believed that China never reports the true extent of its military spending, I'd take it with a very large grain of salt.

[McDeloud]

It is widely believed that China never reports the true extent of its military spending, I'd take it with a very large grain of salt.

Thats for sure. By the way did you hear about Phillip A. Karber?

[ashblond]

Who cares if China builds a huge Military? They are making the same mistakes the Soviet Union did, learn from history and all that.

I don't know where you had your history lesson. But history has proved that China did NOT make the same mistakes the Soviet did.

Soviet never tried a capitalist/free market economy, Soviet's GDP was never even close to US even during its peak.

When Soviet Union and other Eastern European communist countries collapsed, China did not, because it already reformed its economy and adopted capitalism.

Military wise, Soviet was just as aggressive as USA, controlling small countries and fighting proxy wars. It was totally different case for China, who shows little interests in foreign countries' politics, but mainly in trade and business.

[Thoughtful Trolli]

Once again, it seems the answer is similar to Scott Adam's proposals through his Dilbert comic strip.

We'll just tell them that we got a big ass military, and watch them over exert themselves trying to compare.

Which in this case, is being employed against us, which makes us need to presume they are just trying to provoke us to our disadvantage, and so, we will not let ourselves be provoked.

[Deleted]

For balance sake, I guess it's good if there are at least two countries that match each other military wise?