China's President Xi Jinping is set to roll out a new command structure that will solidify his control of the country's armed forces. In this photo, a picture of Xi seen behind soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army marching during a training session for a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the World War Two, at a military base in Beijing, China on Aug 22, 2015. Reuters/Damir Sagolj
Derek Grossman & Michael S. Chase, National Interest: Why Xi is Purging the Chinese Military
China's president pulls a page from Mao's little red playbook.
Much has been made of the flurry of announcements in recent months by Xi Jinping—China’s president, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC)—signaling major structural reforms to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), scheduled for completion by 2020. Veteran China watchers have diligently catalogued what is known and unknown at this point from authoritative pronouncements, and what is speculated on the basis of unofficial sources. Observers, for example, have paid especially close attention to Xi’s establishment of the PLA Strategic Support Force and ruminated over its stature in the PLA vis-à-vis the services, as well as its precise role and mission. Analysts have also pondered questions such as the future membership of the CMC and how cooperative the traditionally army-dominated top levels of the PLA’s leadership will become under the reforms.
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WNU Editor: Being one who lived and worked in China for years .... corruption in the Chinese government was something that I always expected. The fact that the military .... with its close ties to the government .... was not immune to this, does not surprise me. Will President Xi succeed .... I do not know. But if China wants to have a professional army where its officers and leaders rise through the ranks due to ability instead of privilege .... they have to start now.
2 comments:
He's got him a twofer going there, the corruption charge makes it easy to root out enemies and tighten control. Of course it's a race between him and his opponents. He must be confident about this after working over the internal security apparatus, but he may find himself in the lion's den with no Daniel in sight.
Stalin purged the Red Army and then got all he could handle from the Finns and slapped around by the NAZIs. It took a long time and a lot of lives to rebuild the officer corps.
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