Jeremy Page, China's Xi Bets Big on a Global Military; Leader's plan to revamp the armed forces, a milestone in his nation's emergence from isolationism, faces hurdles at home. Wall Street Journal, Apr 26, 2016 (front page). http://www.wsj.com/articles/pres ... military-1461608795
Quote:
"He [Xi] is taking direct command of combat operations: Official media named him for the first time as 'commander-in-chief' of a new joint battle command center that he visited on Wednesday in a rare appearance in camouflage fatigues and combat boots.
"His plan echoes the Reagan-era Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which revamped the US military to address the inter-services rivalry and insufficient civilian control exposed during the Vietnam War and 1983 Grenada invasion. * * * It [Goldwater-Nichols Act] bolstered the authority of regional commanders to oversee all services in combat. That 'joint operations' approach means commanders can mobilize whatever air, navy or other forces they need when trouble arises. Chinese leaders have hankered after similar capabilities since observing the 1991 Gulf War, when US leaders coordinated a complex array of forces to devastating effect, say Chinese officers and military historians.
"By the 1990s, though, Beijing worried about the military's readiness, especially after a 1996 standoff with the US over Taiwan. * * * Hu Jintao[] struggled to stamp his authority over the PLA. In 2011, US officials said President Hu seemed unaware of a provocative test flight of China's new stealth fighter hours before meeting Robert Gates, US Defense Secretary at the time. The incident fueled speculation among military experts that hawkish elements in China’s armed forces were increasingly driving Chinese foreign policy. Chinese officials declined to comment.
"The seven [military] regions were replaced with five new 'Theater Commands 战区,' designed to have more fluid boundaries and focus more on projecting power outward, according to military insiders. Each command's head will have more-direct operational control of all air, naval, ground and conventional missile forces in its area, much like heads of U.S. regional commands, experts said. 'This should improve response time and effectiveness,' said Phillip Saunders, a PLA expert at the US National Defense University. 'They've looked at how the US has fought and see a lot of advantages to this "joint" kind of concept,' adding that it took the US 15 to 20 years 'to really get it right.'
My comment:
(a) The English-language report occupies slightly more than a page in print. Even so, only the quotation is somewhat new.
(b) The bar chart shows CCP had an army of six million strong! I wonder whether that includes (part-time) militias. Otherwise, how could China feed/support them all?