MARCHING TOWARD REFORM

Efforts to modernize China’s armed forces gather pace By Yin Pumin

MARCHING TOWARD REFORM

Efforts to modernize China’s armed forces gather pace By Yin Pumin

VIRTUAL TRAINING: Soldiers of a military unit in Liu'an City, Anhui Province, recieve simulated training for motor maintenance on July 31, 2011

On December 21, 2011, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) established the Military Training Department under its General Staff Headquarters.

The new organ grew out of a department of military training and arms services.

“It is a ‘historic overhaul’ for the military training wing of the PLA and a major step to strengthen the joint training of different branches of the armed forces in the face of new situations and tasks,” said Chen Bingde,Chief of the General Staff of the PLA.

According to Chen, the reshuf fl e will enable better overall management of military training for the army as well as the navy, air force, and the strategic nuclear force.

Peng Guangqian, a retired PLA major general and military analyst in Beijing, said that the establishment of the Military Training Department is consistent with the theme of PLA reforms over the last decade, which have aimed to improve the quality of military personnel.

The Military Training Department was the second new department established under the PLA General Staff Headquarters within the space of a month. The Strategic Planning Department was set up on November 22 last year.

“The actions are just the continuation of other military reforms made by the PLA in recent years, including the reform to military academies in July 2011. The process will continue in future,” said Li Jie, a researcher with the PLA Navy’s Academic Research Institute.

Enhancing management

According to Luo Yuan, Deputy Secretary General of the China Society of Military Science, the establishment of the Strategic Planning Department under the PLA General Staff Headquarters is in response to the increasingly sophisticated military operations that may take place in the future involving multiple combat forces and headquarters.

“The new department will become an authoritative and comprehensive planning center,” Luo said.

The Strategic Planning Department has been tasked with studying key strategic issues, drawing out development plans for the military’s growth, and drafting proposals on the general allocation and macro-control of the military’s strategic resources.

It is also responsible for coordinating reform efforts across different military departments and checking and evaluating the implementation of the military’s development plan.

“With the progress of military reforms across the world, military organizational structures are becoming increasingly complex, and there is a growing requirement for strategic management,”said Geng Yansheng, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense.

Song Xiaojun, a Beijing-based military analyst, hopes the Strategic Planning Department will establish a new security framework for the PLA’s future development direction.

Last December also saw the establishment of three separate research centers in the PLA Academy of Military Science for military-civilian integration, non-war military operations and national defense policy.

Liao Xilong, Director of the PLA General Logistics Department, said that the establishment of the Military-Civilian Integration Research Center was expected to change the current mode of the military scientific research as it provides a broader platform for connecting theory and practice and promoting military and civilian exchanges and cooperation.

The Non-War Military Operations Research Center was established to push forward the in-depth development of theoretical research in this regard, said thePLA Daily.

“The research center will keep abreast of the latest research achievements and cuttingedge developments at home and abroad so as to increase Chinese armed forces’ capability for theoretical research into non-war military operations. It will also train researchers who specialize in non-war military operations,”said an of fi cial with the research center.

According to thePLA Daily, the main tasks of the National Defense Policy Research Center include participating in the formulation of China’s defense white papers, preparing the annual strategic assessment report on the country’s security environment, examining major theoretical and practical issues concerning national defense, and holding academywide, military-wide, or international seminars on national defense theories.

Nurturing personnel

In April 2011, China released a military blueprint, which says, as part of their efforts to modernize, Chinese armed forces are looking to train officers of a higher caliber, able to handle advanced weaponry and master warfare in the information age by 2020.

The PLA already possesses an array of hitech weaponry, but the quality of its soldiers has been lagging behind its technological progress, the document says.

“China has made efforts to strengthen its ability to innovate in science and technology in recent years. It has sped up the development of new and hi-tech weaponry, but this weaponry needs to be handled by highly trained soldiers,” said Li with the PLA Navy’s Academic Research Institute.

To improve their combat effectiveness,Chinese armed forces need soldiers who are not only specialized in just one fi eld, but also proficient in the joint operations of all three military branches, he added.

“In order to achieve these targets, Qiu Shulin, a researcher with the PLA Academy of Military Science, suggests the reform of military academies should be the fi rst priority.

Chinese military academies provide cadets with training in a range of specializations including engineering, communication technologies, military studies, medical studies,sports and even the humanities including arts and languages.

On July 11, 2011, the 16th Meeting for Military Academies was held in Beijing,initiating a new round of reform for China’s of fi cer training system.

The Hefei Institute of Artillery in east China’s Anhui Province has been re-launched as an army officer training college modeled along the lines of the U.S. Military Academy,also known as West Point.

“The change illustrates that China is focusing more on the cultivation of army commanders, and that the school will foster more commanders of the infantry, artillery and armored forces,” said Wu Xiang, the fi rst president of the school.

The Wuhan-based PLA Communication and Command Institute in Hubei Province changed its name to the Defense Information Institute. The PLA General Staff Headquarters established an information technology department by reorganizing its communications department on June 30, 2011. Chief of the General Staff of the PLA Chen said that the revamp aimed to boost the Chinese armed forces’ capability to fi ght an information war.

The Xi’an-based Second Artillery Engineering School in Shaanxi Province was promoted into the Second Artillery University and the former Engineering College of the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force (CAPF)and the Xi’an Commanding College of the CAPF were merged into the Engineering University of the CAPF.

“The changes are in response to the requirements of modern hi-tech wars for more personnel with an engineering background,” said theSouthern Weeklybased in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province.

Chinese armed forces are looking to train officers of a higher caliber, able to handle advanced weaponry and master warfare in the information age by 2020

According to the newspaper, some academies of the PLA Air Force and Navy have also been reformed.

Despite reforms, Chinese military academies continue to confront a number of longstanding problems, including overstaf fi ng and redundant functions.

In almost every Chinese province, for example, there was a junior college to train armed police officers. But their distribution across the country made the system dif fi cult for the CAPF Headquarters to manage.

Two weeks after the Meeting for Military Academies, the CAPF decided to reduce the number of its officer training colleges to 14 from 27, with all of them to receive orders directly from CAPF Headquarters.

“Downsizing the number of military academies is an international trend that has happened in almost every major country,”said Liu Jifeng, a professor at the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, Hunan Province.

Even before the 2011 Meeting for Military Academies the number of military academies in China had fallen from 100 to 67.

According to Liu, education in general knowledge will be gradually stripped from military academies and those military academies without prominent defining characteristics and unique military technologies will be eliminated as part of reforms for the information age.

Starting from 2011, many military academies have changed their curricula and teaching models.

They are also looking to work together with civilian universities in order to provide cadets with a comprehensive education.

Starting from 2003, the number of national defense students has increased, and some military academies have already launched joint education programs in cooperation with civilian universities. “Studying military knowledge alone will not equip a student for the demands of the military in the 21st century,” Liu said.

“The curriculum needs to be creative,”said Zhang Yafei, President of the PLA University of Science and Technology in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. “Education needs to make students fit for their future careers,and help them use the knowledge they acquire to solve problems they may encounter in the future.”