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China Streamlining and Reduction in Force
Efforts began in the 1980s to streamline the PLA and organize
it into a modern fighting force. The first step in reducing the
4.5-million-member PLA in the early 1980s was to relieve the PLA of
some of its nonmilitary duties. The Railway Engineering Corps and
the Capital Construction Engineering Corps were civilianized, and
in 1983 the PLA internal security and border patrol units were
transferred to the People's Armed Police Force.
In 1985 China reorganized its 11 military regions into 7 and
began a 2-year program to reduce the force by 1 million. Eight
military regions were merged into four--Chengdu, Jinan, Lanzhou,
and Nanjing--and three key regions--Beijing, Guangzhou, and
Shenyang--remained intact
(see
fig. 24). The PLA accomplished its
1-million-troop cut by streamlining the headquarters staffs of the
three general departments, the military regions, and the military
districts; reducing the size of the Air Force and the Navy;
retiring older, undereducated, or incompetent officers; and
transferring county- and city-level people's armed forces
departments, which controlled the militia, to local civil
authorities.
The PLA also reorganized its field armies (main-force armies)
into group armies to increase its capability to wage combined-arms
warfare. Breaking with the previously triangular organization of
military units, the group armies combined formerly independent arms
or services into a comprehensive combat unit. Group armies
consisted of infantry and mechanized infantry divisions, tank
divisions or brigades, and a number of artillery, antichemical, air
defense, engineer, signal, reconnaissance, electronic
countermeasure, and logistics troops. In the late 1980s, some group
armies also had helicopter, air support, or naval units.
In 1987 PLA strength was about 3 million. Ground forces
numbered about 2.1 million--the world's largest standing army; the
Navy about 350,000--including those assigned to Naval Aviation,
Coastal Defense Forces, and Marine Corps; the Air Force about
390,000; and the Strategic Missile Force about 100,000. The PLA was
supported by an estimated 4.3 million basic (armed and trained)
militia and 6 million ordinary (poorly armed and trained) militia.
According to the 1984 Military Service Law, the militia, which was
being combined with a newly developed reserve system, and the
People's Armed Police Force also formed part of the Chinese armed
forces
(see Paramilitary Forces
, this ch.). In 1986 reserve forces
were included officially in the organizational system.
Data as of July 1987
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