A modern command system for the Chinese military

CHINA may have more or less finished the broader steps to restructuring its military. On Feb. 1, Chinese President Xi Jinping presided over the inauguration of five new theater commands, replacing China’s seven former military regions. While not the first time China has cut down the number of its military regions and redrawn their borders, this particular reform is the first instance in which the function and role of the military regions have been drastically altered by unifying the chains of command of China’s military forces. These changes are intended to reinforce the ability of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to conduct effective joint military operations. China needed to make such changes if it wanted to compete with the world’s most advanced militaries.

The old regions were controlled entirely by ground forces, which in peacetime focused more on administration and preparation than command of actual military operations. The regions could be upgraded into “war zones” in times of military emergency, during which these zones would bring the region’s naval and air forces under the command of the military region commander — always an army general. The process presumably disrupted chains of command for naval and air forces, which were independent in peacetime but had to subordinate their operations to the demands of ground forces in war.