Long but good. EFL.
BEIJING — China has decided to eliminate 500,000 members of the People's Liberation Army — about 20 percent of its force — in an effort to turn the world's largest standing military into a streamlined, modern organization. The plan would cut the size of the army over the next five years to about 1.85 million troops. The Chinese government spends up to $60 billion a year on defense, comparable to Russian military expenditures, according to a report last month by the Council on Foreign Relations. The military modernization is taking place as this country seeks to parlay its emerging economic power into greater geopolitical influence. China now has the sixth-largest economy in the world, according to the World Bank. Once confined to Asia, Chinese interests now span the seas. More than 50 percent of imported oil comes from the Middle East, and China's energy investments range from Sudan to Venezuela and Kazakhstan.
While there has been notable economic success here, military modernization has proved elusive. The Council on Foreign Relations report concluded that China is far from becoming a global military power and that it remains at least two decades behind the United States in military technology and ability. Western and Chinese sources said the troop cuts were approved during the 16th Congress of the Communist Party in November and at a subsequent meeting of the Central Military Commission, the country's highest military body. A Western military officer said the cuts would focus on demobilizing a vast array of nonessential personnel. Analysts liken the People's Liberation Army to a large state-owned corporation. It has its own hospitals, schools, movie studios, TV production centers, publishing houses, opera troupes, textile factories, farms and hotels. Many of these organizations are "an unnecessary drain on their resources," the Western military officer said. Command headquarters will be closed and military schools will be merged. Significantly, the demobilization, the second major troop cutback since 1997, when China also cut 500,000 soldiers, does not appear to be proceeding simultaneously with an overhaul of the military's command structure. Newspapers in Hong Kong and Singapore have reported in recent weeks that the Chinese government was prepared to replace its Soviet-era continental command structure with a military more geared to projecting power toward Asia's sea lanes and Taiwan. However, the news reports appear to be premature, and China seems to be headed for a less ambitious tweaking of its current system. At most, China will cut the number of military regions from seven to six, merging the Jinan Military Region with the Nanjing Military Region. The Nanjing Military Region is tasked with leading unification efforts with Taiwan, a focal point for military preparedness.
Modernization efforts are hampered in part by an overemphasis on politics, analysts said. Western military officers estimated that some units spend 30 percent of their training time studying politics. Reform is also hurt by the contradictory tasks that are part of the military mission. The primary mission is to help keep the Communist Party in power. The PLA maintains a large nationwide force to suppress demonstrations, riots and peasant uprisings. As a result, some of the demobilized soldiers will be transferred directly to the People's Armed Police, an internal security force that has grown to more than 1 million. A similar transfer took place in the 1997 military cutback.
The PLA has invested heavily to create an arsenal of accurate short-range missiles to support another major goal, unification with Taiwan. It is building and training with amphibious craft, and has bought a stock of Russian equipment — dozens of advanced fighters and fighter-bombers, at least four diesel submarines and two advanced destroyers armed with state-of-the-art anti-ship torpedoes. The acquisitions are intended to create a force capable of bullying Taiwan and thwarting U.S. intervention in any conflict between China and Taiwan, military analysts said. Taiwan unification also requires creation of a war-fighting command structure that can integrate army, navy, air force and rocketry forces, analysts said. Gen. Liang Guanglie, the PLA's new chief of staff and the former commander of the Nanjing Military Region, has been given the authority to create such a command structure. The PLA mission also includes deployment in the vast western regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, where it functions as an expeditionary force, patrolling borders and pacifying restive ethnic populations. In those zones, the military resembles the army of China's imperial past. It runs farms, undertakes engineering projects and operates garrisons throughout those territories. 
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