Issues/Problems the PLA needs to address

While we continue to talk about the progresses of the Chinese military in other threads, I think we should create one for the opposite end addressing the issues the Chinese military continues to face and how they can address them, and how it can look if things change.

I believe this thread will be very meaningful as it will also help us continue to monitor Chinese progress from a different perspective and over time. While the general threads continue to add pluses to Chinese capability, this thread will be the opposite where we start with a list and cross things off as the Chinese military improves.

Most importantly, I think this article is interesting for 2 reasons:
1. I have read RAND's publishes on China's A2/AD strategies, which was extremely informative several years ago. I had a lot to learn from it and I will say some RAND publishes do have some good credibility. This leads me to the second point:

2. Recently I've read also a similar assessment listing US military weaknesses. In that benchmark, RAND studied and compared US military by its own standards and listed weaknesses such as outdated equipment, marginal readiness levels for 3 out of 4 branches (USN, Army, Marines), stating that the US military suffered budget restraints and in general also only capable of one focused theatre campaign, not 2 simultaneous ones. My conclusion was it was very informative and insightful. Having said that, I believe reading a similar publishes by Western think tanks on China that can provide a modest assessment is actually very valuable, as credible studies by the West are still very hard to come by without their bias these days.

I wanna hear what you guys think, and my point isn't to criticize the Chinese military, but to discuss.

Finally, I have read this article and evaluated its worth before I considered opening this article, as I couldn't think of a good location to place this.

Today, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC)

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an assessment on the weaknesses of the China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). While the report, compiled by the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD), points out that “the PLA’s capabilities have improved dramatically,” it also notes “potentially serious weaknesses” that could “limit [the PLA's] ability to successfully conduct the information-centric, integrated joint operations Chinese military strategists see as required to fight and win future wars.”

The authors divide Chinese military’s weaknesses into two broad categories: institutional and combat capabilities. Institutional problems arise from rampant corruption, outdated command structures, the quality of personnel, and lack of professionalism. The weakness in combat capabilities is due to “an incomplete military transformation,” which produced logistical weaknesses, insufficient strategic airlift capabilities, limited numbers of special-mission aircraft, and deficiencies in naval air defense and antisubmarine warfare. The paper also lists shortcomings in other domains such as space and cyberspace. In addition, China’s defense industry is also allegedly suffering from widespread corruption and is in the middle of a “transition from central planning to a more market-oriented system.”

Based on the authors’ study of more than 300 Chinese-language articles, numerous books, and other military publications, the report

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that the PLA is aware of its own shortcomings. Many Chinese military writers have in the last few years pointed out that the PLA appears incapable of conducting information-centric, integrated joint operations, which are required to fight and win future ”local wars under informatized conditions.”

The report is based on 16 assumptions by the authors, including that the preservation of the Communist Party is the state’s and military’s top priority; the PLA will continue to be dominant within the state structure; there will be no major change in the China-Russia relationship or Russia’s broad strategic orientation; and also no major technological surprises from the Chinese side that could upend the current military balance in the Asia-Pacific region.

Why is the study of the PLA’s weaknesses important? The report

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out four reasons:

• First, assuming we can gain greater knowledge of what the PLA sees as its own shortcomings, this is likely to offer a useful guide to assessing the future direction of PLA modernization and reform.
• Second, studying PLA weaknesses may inform the U.S. approach to forging a military-to-military relationship with China that advances U.S. interests and contributes to regional security and stability.
• Third, understanding the PLA’s weaknesses, and its own assessment of them, can help to improve the ability of the United States and its allies and partners to deter China from using force or the threat of force to resolve disputes with its neighbors.
• Fourth, if deterrence fails, knowing the PLA’s weaknesses could help devise strategies for countering Chinese use of force.

The PLA weaknesses have been known to most analysts observing Chinese military trends. This report, however, constitutes the most updated publicly available military study on the subject and is worth reading in its entirety. It echoes George Orwell’s

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: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”

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I would have talks with my dad sometimes about Chinese military progress. (He's an enthusiast, but read too much rumours from unreliable sites), and he would often tout/brag rumours that's not true (such as Su-35 purchases). I had to keep reminding him that despite the impressive hardware and software and assets PLA as of 2015 would possess, we definitely can't stop there and think that's the end. Structural, military philosophies, managements, organization systems, training, wargames, will continue to affect Chinese combat readiness deeply because it's usually much harder to optimize your gears for combat readiness if you've never truly used it in battle, and how to command and manage a million-men military organ to become as efficient, effective, best trained, competitive quality, is something China will be, imo, faced with as the biggest challenge in the upcoming 20 years to make it really lean and ready. Finally we can't forget as China is starting to get comfortable with this new modernizing stage of its military, old doctrines will have to go, and by then, how things work will again rapidly change.

I think this has been discussed in other threads before, with various articles and entries better than the one from the diplomat.

Corruption isn't as big of an issue operationally as it is in terms of funding, because it seems that most of the corrupt PLA figures are in political/procurement side of things rather than operational. Although the selling of ranks is concerning, even if it is on a very small scale and limited to less operationally important areas of the PLA.

As for the other weaknesses that are broadly referenced like more realistic training, more integration and more investment into combined arms operations, more advanced equipment, these are all things that are mostly dependent on money, and to a degree, political will. Political will has definitely seen a noticeable improvement in all aspects mostly due to Xi Jinping's revitalized approach to the military, and funding is also increasing year by year. The things that they should be improving upon are being steadily improved, but China isn't willing to increase spending on the military as a proportion of GDP too much, and political will can only change previosuly institutional roadblocks so fast.

So I'd say the biggest "weakness" to the PLA is the need for time to fully absorb all their new equipment, integrate them, and train with them in a realistic and continuous fashion.

Really I don't think there's too much to say on the matter, and I'd say that weaknesses the PLA faces are actually pretty well known.

The recent announcement to "reinforce the PLA as an army of the communist party", making sure the top positions are filled with "Political Supervisors" rather than genuine military commanders.

It's a throwback to the past and should not be necessary in a modern fighting force.

Surely the CPC is not this insecure?

To me this is the PLA's biggest weakness, ahead of any problems with integration, training and foreign relations.

lucretius said:

The recent announcement to "reinforce the PLA as an army of the communist party", making sure the top positions are filled with "Political Supervisors" rather than genuine military commanders.

It's a throwback to the past and should not be necessary in a modern fighting force.

Surely the CPC is not this insecure?

To me this is the PLA's biggest weakness, ahead of any problems with integration, training and foreign relations.

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I didn't catch this piece of news, could you link? Thanks.

I would be surprised if what they're planning is quite you're suggesting, because practically the CPC under Xi has been quite intent on improving actual warfighting capability and removing politicking and corruption.
Specifically, I am very surprised if they have said that they are wanting to make sure the top positions in the PLA are taken by political supervisors rather than military commanders, is that an assumption you're making or is it a statement they made?

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Also, at certain organs or levels of the military, having political loyalty and knowing one's political intents and strategic thinking are as important as competence.
It would be disastrous if individuals were only selected based on their political views and not on military merit, and even more disastrous if this was done down to the operational level -- but I've seen and heard no evidence of such an intent.

What we have seen recently is a desire for the CCP to consolidate its control over the PLA to a greater degree, in the sense that the military is strictly under civilian government control.
I think there's no need to freak out that we're going to see soviet style political commissars running the show in PLA operational units. Hell, even in past decades, political commissars in the PLA had far less operational influence in their units compared to their USSR counterparts, and are mostly responsible for administrative and PR work.

The standout quote for me was...

It might not seem revolutionary that the PLA would simply serve the people, but for the communist leadership it represents a threat. The PLA, at the last resort, underwrites the Communist Party's hold on power (most famously at Tiananmen Square in 1989). Any notion that the army would not side with the party needs to be stamped out.

So at the beginning of the year, the PLA's general political department issued a circular which announced that all combat officers should swap places with political commissars. Every unit at company level and above in the PLA has a political officer whose role is to implement party decisions and to provide political education to soldiers.

If carried out in full (a big question), it would represent one of the largest reshuffles in military history. It would also appear to mean that party discipline within the army is so important that the leadership is willing, at least for a while, to sacrifice a degree of operational capacity in the armed forces to get their house in order. Political officers are experts in Marxist-Leninist theory, not in commanding infantry.

Err I'd be interested to see what circular they are referring to, because such an extreme transition as described is not something that has been previously reported. Either this has flown under all of our collective radars (unlikely) or the BBC has misinterpreted something.

A quick search shows that the only previous independent report of this is from scmp, but I don't have a subscription to them so I don't actually know what their article is saying

Of course scmp isn't exactly notable for being accurate in its reporting of PLA matters, and often sensationalizes its content. So I did a bit more digging for around the time when the scmp article was published (Jan 11)

A search shows articles about PLA reshuffling, in terms of political officers, as well as in terms of a few more high ranking officers netted in the anti corruption drive.





But there is nothing like what the BBC or scmp describes, and none of the other PLA watching sites, groups, or forums have mentioned this at all.

It's also worth reading just what political officers do in the PLA, and this jamestown foundation article is quite worthwhile:

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PLA Political Officer Overview
The PLA’s predecessor, the Red Army, assigned its first PCs to units in 1929 (China Military Encyclopedia 1997, Vol. 4, p. 377), which was a year before it created the General Political Department (GPD, zong zhengzhi bu) (China Military Encyclopedia 2007: China PLA Military History, Vol. 1, p. 63).

The PLA’s political work system consists of three component systems: party committee (dangwei), political commissar (zhengwei), and administrative and functional (jiguan) (China Military Encyclopedia2007: China PLA Military Political Work Overview, Vol. 2, p. 497).

Since the 1930s, the PLA’s political work system has consisted of political officers at every level in the chain of command, from the company level up to the four General Departments—General Staff (GSD), GPD, General Logistics (GLD) and General Armament (GAD). Squads, which consist of enlisted personnel, and platoons do not have political officers. The three levels of political officers who serve as unit leaders (zhuguan) and deputy leaders are as follows (People’s Liberation Army Air Force 2010, Chapter 6, NASIC; China’s National Defense 2002):

• Political commissars (zhengwei) are assigned to all organizations at the regiment level and above;
• Political directors (jiaodaoyuan) are assigned to all battalion-level organizations;
• Political instructors (zhidaoyuan) are assigned to all company-level organizations.

The three levels of political officers above have basically the same key responsibilities:

• Implementing decisions made by the party committee;
• Instilling party discipline among party members;
• Providing political education to the troops within their organization;
• Working with other components of the political work system.

A high percentage of political officers who serve as unit leaders and deputies, as well as some of the directors in first-level Political Divisions (zhengzhi chu) at the regiment level and Political Departments (zhengzhi bu) above the regiment level, are selected from company-grade officers who have been Communist Party members since they were cadets and are already serving in the military/command track; however, some political officers also come from the logistics, equipment, and special technical track. As a result, the new political officers already have some operational experience at the grassroots level (e.g., battalion and below). They continue to build on this experience as members of the unit’s party committee and standing committee throughout the rest of their career.

As a general rule, the unit’s political officer serves as the secretary for the party committee (regiment and above), grassroots party committee (battalion), or party branch (company), while the unit’s military track leader (e.g., commander, director, or commandant/president), serve as the deputy secretary. In addition, the GLD and GAD, as well as their counterpart organizations in the Military Regions, Navy, Air Force and Second Artillery down to the regiment level have both a director and PC, where the PC usually serves as the party secretary. The exception is when the commander, such as former PLAAF commander Qiao Qingchen and former PLAN commander Ye Fei, or the GLD/GAD director previously served as a political officer. Under those circumstances, the commander/director then serves as the party secretary.

Besides the political officers who serve as unit political leaders and directors of the first-level Political Division/Department, other political officers include the directors of the various second-level administrative and functional political departments, bureaus, divisions, offices and branches down to the regiment level, including the organization, cadre (officer personnel), propaganda, security, cultural activities, mass work and party discipline departments. There are also political staff officers (ganshi) and secretaries (mishu), who support the leaders and first- and second-level department directors (PLAAF 2010).

Finally, every PLA organization has more than one deputy PC. In some cases, one of the deputies also serves concurrently as the director of the Political Department. This is possible because both billets are the same grade at every level. As a result, some PCs have been selected from either a deputy PC or the director of the Political Department.

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So in conclusion, I think you can be assured that the idea of swapping out all combat officers with political commissars (whatever that means) is not what is being described. In fact, such an order would not be only issued in a mere circular, and this would mean a massive military wide shake up down to the company level at least. And it would mean putting officers who are not trained for meaningful operational and command duties during combat in control of basically the entire PLA, which goes against the entire consistent nature of recent PLA drives to increase combat capability with realistic training and integration.

We don't need a thread about PLA weaknesses, but rather a thread about weaknesses in the PLA watching community and media reports about the PLA instead -- much more to talk about on that topic, I think.


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edit:

The scmp article loaded for me

PLA orders combat officers and commissars to trade places to boost fighting capability

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 11 January, 2015, 10:35pm
UPDATED : Monday, 12 January, 2015, 7:15pm

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has ordered combat officers and those in charge of political training at the grass-roots level to switch posts to improve both fighting capability and political loyalty of the army.

The new measure will apply to chief officers at all grass-roots units in the army and the armed police, according to a circular quoted by the PLA Daily.

The report said that President Xi Jinping , who as Communist party secretary also heads the military, wanted officers to have wider training early in their careers. "The circular will have a positive impact to help cultivate officers who show talent in both military and political affairs," the report said.

Political officers and commissars are in charge of ensuring the loyalty and political correctness of the army. Usually they have different career paths from combat officers.

Xinhua said that during a pilot scheme at a brigade of the 27th Combined Corp last year, company commanders were asked to swap stream after two years in office, while all battalion chiefs should change posts if they had not done so before.

The circular said the scheme would be expanded to all grass-roots units. But the army would still find ways to ensure the continuity of officers' career paths even though they would be moved around more often.

Xu Guangyu , a retired major general, said the scheme would have a far-reaching impact on the military.

"Combat leaders and political commissars can build on professional knowledge in a new field that is beneficial to the quality of army," Xu said.

"Whether it's frontline battles or army management, a well-trained officer will excel in both areas."

In late October, Xi summoned more than 400 military leaders to Gutian, in Fujian , and ordered them to remember the Communist Party's traditions and their loyalty to the party.

So actually reading the scmp article, we can see that it's far less dramatic than what is suggested by the BBC. But the scmp article is still a little vague, so further digging using some new key words brings up new write ups:

For instance, this global times article sheds much more light on the matter, demonstrating it is meant to provide cross pollination of different aspects of both roles to only one pair of political and military officers in each unit. And it is an exchange programme, not a permanent change and is only a small part of the larger reform of the organisational and training in the PLA to improve professionalism. By the sounds of it the PLA wants to have greater understanding of the roles that military combat officers and political officers have for each other, to improve communication and unit level efficiency.

PLA moves to reshuffle grassroots officers
By Chen Heying Source:Global Times Published: 2015-1-12 0:28:03

Swapping political and military personnel meant to strengthen readiness
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has ordered grassroots military commanders and political instructors to switch posts, a move aimed at further pushing forward military reform and increasing combat capacity, according to analysts.

The plan is expected to help grassroots officers to gain professional military knowledge while enhancing their capacity to handle political and ideological work, said a circular issued by the PLA General Political Department.

The circular was endorsed by President

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, also chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Post exchanges will be restricted to two officers within the same unit, instead of crossing military area commands or branches of the armed services, Yue Gang, a retired PLA colonel, told the Global Times.

Certain political instructors belittle the importance of military knowledge as they believe that "political influence has much more say than military expertise," Yue said, adding that with an increasingly professional military, the exchanges can better prepare political chiefs for more complicated military missions.

Xi stressed the Communist Party of China's absolute control over the military at a conference held in October 2014, in Gutian, a former revolutionary base in Fujian Province.

"The [exchange] program will also encourage officers in charge of military and political work to supervise each other … and create a corruption-free leadership," Luo Yuan, a PLA major general, told the Global Times.

Luo explained that frequent exchanges are likely to prevent the formation of cliques and inflexible work styles. He reminded that there still should be a focus on cultivating both kinds of capabilities. "We should make the best use of [both]."

The PLA General Political Department is mulling making this a routine practice in the armed forces and a "new normal" in training grassroots offices, said the circular.

"It is also a part of the deepening reform of the military system, after the Third Plenary Session [of the 18th CPC Central Committee] decided to reduce non-combat institutions and personnel," said Song Zhongping, a military affairs commentator.

A similar scheme was implemented among military and political chiefs at the battalion and company levels in 2014.

The PLA Daily said on Sunday the measure is a response to Xi's drive to cultivate improved military competency and political awareness among military officers at the grassroots level.

A number of high-level military officials have exchanged posts recently, involving over 30 officials in seven military regions, among them Lieutenant General Zhang Shibo, the commander of the Beijing Military Region, who exchanged posts with Song Puxuan, the president of the PLA National Defense University.

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Now, if you're still skeptical about the exchange programme, perhaps believing state media are just using it as a cover to replace all the experienced and trained combat officers with inexperienced and feeble political officers, here is an article by the Jamestown foundation article that I found which also talks about it in very objective terms. I've only included the relevant paragraph, but the rest of the article is worth reading as it provides context for the exchange programme, showing it is just one part of the larger reform plan and definitely not the "historically unprecedented" change that the BBC is suggesting where all combat officers are subordinate to inexperienced political officers.
Hell, even 86,000 officers were temporarily assigned as privates in a similar exchange programme, to build more education and experience and improve work styles. The fact that political officers are often involved in admin and money managing side of things makes sense that the PLA will want to give them greater understanding of the operational side of things, and also for combat military officers to appreciate and coordinate with their political officers on the admin side better, especially when corruption is mostly limited to the administrative, logistics and money handling officers and organs of the PLA rather than the operational officers.

I hope this has convinced you that the previous opinion you held was based on false and frankly idiotic premises by the BBC.

In fact, the more I search about this, the more I realize just how badly the BBC has screwed up in their article. They've completely missed the understanding of what this exchange programme and what the larger military reform and anti corruption drive is meant to achieve.

President Xi Clears the Way for Military Reform: PLA Corruption, Clique Breaking and Making, and Personnel Shuffle
Publication: China Brief Volume: 15 Issue: 3
February 4, 2015 06:45 PM Age: 32 days

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The PLA is also shuffling commanders and political officers down to the battalion level. Exchanges of commanders and political officers at battalion and company levels were tested in a brigade of the 27th Group Army, Beijing MR in 2014. In January 2015, it was announced that the exchange program would be applied to all grass-roots units. According to the PLA, this is designed to improve the quality of officers and end corruption. In addition, the PLA began a program in April 2013 to send officers at and above the regiment level to serve temporarily as privates. Reportedly, 86,000 officers have been through this program to improve work styles (

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, January 12;

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, January 12;

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, January 12).

Quite a few of the personnel changes involved political officers and to a lesser extent logistics related positions. These are likely designed to break up cliques of officers in positions where corruption is most rampant. Political officers are responsible for personnel selection and logistics officers are responsible for material and construction projects. Both of these areas have been a focus of corruption cases involving payment for billets, embezzlement of funds and bribery for construction contracts. The movement of officers within all of the MRs also breaks ground force cliques in those commands that were likely opposed to adjustments in the military region system and establishment of joint commands that would diminish the power of the ground forces within the defense establishment.

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The shuffling of a large number of political and, to a lesser extent, logistics officers from areas where corruption is at its worst is an attempt to break connections and curb corruption. The number of announced corruption cases and the movement of political officers appears to indicate a significant problem in the personnel selection process with serious adverse consequences for the PLA.

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Promotions, building a base of support within the military, and the threat of corruption investigations all enhance President Xi’s control over the military and increase the chances of full implementation of his military reform plan. However, an additional important reason for the PLA personnel shuffle is to break up ground force cliques within the MRs that oppose some of President Xi’s military reform proposals, and have also obstructed MR adjustments and the creation of joint commands in the past. The making of cliques to support President Xi and the breaking of cliques opposed to aspects of his military reforms should pave the way forward for real change within the PLA. These moves during the past year are likely the precursor to start implementing these sweeping changes proposed in the military reform plan.

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My god, as I read over the last few posts I just wonder how that BBC article even passed the common sense test.

Frankly I think anyone with an inkling of understanding of recent PLA news should have guessed something was very very wrong with the conclusions that were made, jeez.
Sometimes the BBC's china correspondents make me want to prepare a series of annotated lectures to show them just how blatantly incorrect they are. Goodness.

This is a more detailed jamestown foundation article about the exchange programme. I won't copy the entire thing, but there is one important paragraph that basically sums up the goals behind it

In this dual-command system, the post rotation policy is significant because it helps remove cultural distance between different groups within the PLA by allowing both command track and political track officers to better understand each other’s jobs. Through their rotations to political-track leadership positions, grassroots commanders gain a better understanding of grassroots political work, which is helpful as they move up the career ladder. From a top-down perspective, post rotations could double the number of leaders with experience with both political and military grassroots issues, possibly increasing the number of potential candidates for promotion to higher levels within the political commissar system. Likewise, the “serve in a company” program helps bring senior cadres, particularly those who have never interacted with enlisted soldiers, down to the grassroots level to understand the challenges faced by the “foundation” of the military’s combat power.

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