Posted on 09/13/2003 4:27:24 AM PDT by JZoback
Chinese leaders have long recognised the need to trim down and sharpen up a 2.5 million-strong force that has traditionally relied on sheer weight of numbers.
This year's American-led invasion of Iraq, with its use of precision firepower and information technology, has only served to remind them just how far behind they are.
The latest cuts, announced last week, will focus exclusively on China's ground forces, according to Dr David Shambaugh, Director of the China Programme at George Washington University and author of a new book on China's military modernisation.
The 200,000 job losses, to be implemented by the end of next year, follow the dismissal of half a million men between 1995 and 2000, Dr Shambaugh told BBC News Online.
"But the PLA is still too bloated," he said. "These reforms are more a matter of aspiration than reality."
About 80% of those losing their jobs will be officers, according to pro-China newspapers in Hong Kong.
The army's song and dance troupes, who once provided the only entertainment available to China's masses, are also to be disbanded.
Soldiers and people
The Red Army, as it was once known, was always in the vanguard of Mao Zedong's communist revolution. Soon after the Long March - its epic tactical retreat across China in the 1930s - it began to develop its own huge bureaucracy and any number of ancillary services.
When the army finally brought Mao to power, with the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, it had a strength of almost six million.
Mao favoured a "people's army", based on huge numbers of soldiers to serve as cannon fodder and overwhelm the enemy. Even a nuclear war was winnable in this way, he said.
While famously noting that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun", he also liked to portray the soldiers and the people as being "as close as the fish and the sea".
A sharp rise in military spending followed, with the purchase of a significant fleet of Russian-made fighter planes, bombers capable of mid-air refuelling, submarines and other weapons.
Last week China tested the prototype of a new fighter jet jointly developed with Pakistan. Official reports say the Xiao Long, or Valiant Dragon, FC-1, will be capable of delivering short-range and other missiles, and will rival the US F-16.
Taiwan still main target
The leadership's highest priority remains to unite the island of Taiwan with the mainland. But the strategy for accomplishing this has moved away from the notion of sending waves of troops across the Taiwan Strait.
A more likely scenario today, according to military analysts, is an air and sea blockade and the use of hi-tech missiles and even computer viruses to cripple Taiwan's economy.
Recent arms purchases have been focused on the navy and air force, rather than the much larger army, which has had traditional primacy over the other two services.
The quality and training of soldiers and general standards of equipment remain poor.
And overall, China still has a long way to go to catch up militarily with the West, say analysts.
"30 years behind USA"
"It is at least 20 years behind Nato and 30 behind the US", Dr Shambaugh said.
But the weapons build-up of recent years has attracted attention in the rest of Asia and contributed to an arms race. Countries in the region are uncertain how an economically stronger China will behave in the longer term.
China's official defence budget is $22bn but outside observers say real military spending may be up to five times that figure.
Reducing the size of the army will bring a lower wages bill but will also add to the unemployment problem already created by economic reforms.
There are also vested interests opposed to any further moves to professionalise the armed forces or divest them of the huge business empire they developed in the 1980s.
ATTENTION eBay shoppers, 200,000 used Chinese combat boots available soon ;-)
Did I mention that you can now get drivers' licenses-cum-citizenship documents from vending machines? College education will soon be free -- hint: don't show 'em your driver's license they might think that you are a citizen and thus not eligible.
Yes, governments from Mexico all the way around the world to China have been promising their lucky citizens a paradise. Now they are finally delivering.
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