Talk:People's Liberation Army

Discussions from 2004

Ok maybe I'm not a educated enough to know the difference between compulsory service and conscription. As a lay reader, I found it confusing that the body of the text says there is compulsory service for 18 year old men, but the side bar says there is no conscription. I would appreciate clarification —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.129.168.31 (talk) 21:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

1959 Occupation of Tibet? What in the world are you talking about? PLA was in Tibet since 1950 and it NEVER LEFT! What do you mean occupation?

• Tibet is integral part of China, NO so-called invasion of Tibet! 203.218.237.151 15:54, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

It would like saying the British Army invaded Northern Ireland. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.82.167 (talk) 22:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Would it be considered very non-NPOV to point out that the PLA is basically a paper tiger? It currently has no strategic oil reserves worth mentioning (most estimates place it at about two weeks) and thus would fall apart in relatively short order should China ever get into a shooting war with, well, just about anybody. -- Michael

You would need figures and facts to back that up, and perhaps some reliable authorities -- GABaker

I'll dig through what I can find. For obvious reasons this is information that the Chinese government doesn't exactly advertise. (Yet they make "strategic oil reserves" a major item in their sixteenth Party Congress' agenda -- and publicly discuss it.) -- Michael 08:17 28 May 2003 (UTC)

I'd be very interested to read whatever you can find. - David Stewart 08:35 28 May 2003 (UTC)

According to the CIA World Factbook, China has proved oil reserves of 26.75 billion barrels of crude oil (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html ) compared with 22.45 billion for the United States (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html ). "Proved reserves" refers to an estimate of how much oil could be retrieved with any degree of economic feasibility, not to an actual manmade stockpile, and, admittedly, China currently imports more oil than it exports. But this statistic shows that if put on a long-term war footing, China's oil industry might be able to support the PLA effectively. That sort of thing is hard to prove, since China is presently not producing to capacity. William Gardella

I'd also like to point out that the "two weeks" statistic for the PLA's petroleum reserves doesn't mean much without some qualifications. How many troops out of the total strength are being deployed? It's hard to imagine any situation in modern warfare that would cause the deployment of nearly all of a great or medium power's military. If any such situation did arise, it would almost surely be able to be foreseen far enough in advance that the oil reserve could be increased. So, it would be good to know how large of a deployment we're talking about and at what level of activity, how often the reserve is replenished, and how much petroleum would have to be consumed from more conventional sources before the PLA was forced to rely on it. William Gardella

The other thing to keep in mind is that its far from clear that the PLA would be cut off

from oil in case a military conflict. Its hard for me to imagine that a conflict over Askai Chin or the Spratlies would result in a loss of oil. Even in the case of conflict with the United States over Taiwan, one could imagine the PRC still being able to get oil from Russia or Kazhakstan.

One other thing is that this is part of a broader strategic debate within the PLA. There is a school of thought that is very much influenced by the US actions in both Gulf Wars which is thinking about ways of winning a war in under two weeks.

Roadrunner 08:52, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Paper tiger

Also "paper tiger" is a bit harsh. Certainly the PLA would have significant challenges in dealing with a major war against the United States, but:

1) The United States isn't the only armed forces that the PLA could conceivably find itself in conflict with. I don't think that the PLA compares that badly with the armed forces of say Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Kazahstan or India.

2) The fact that we are even considering matching the PLA up against the United States means something. If the PLA could hold off the United States military for a month and then collapse, that's hardly a paper tiger, since that's far, far more than any other military I can think of can do. It's also not diplomatically insignificant, in that the possibility of fighting a costly war, even one which it would ultimately win, can and does cause the United States to alter its foreign policy.

Roadrunner 08:52, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

There is little possibility to have a durable war between two nuclear powers.

zZaz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.9.220.104 (talk) 15:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

any war between them would involve nukes, and no one can win a nuclear war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.151.117 (talk) 02:27, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily. There's a big chance it won't go nuclear. Both sides know the repercussions well. Who would dare fire the first nuke? Akaloc (talk) 21:44, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Private business

The article claims the PLA has got out of private business. Is this true in practice? When I visited China it wasn't hard to see the S-Class Mercedes-Benzes with military number plates and draw certain conclusions...--Robert Merkel 01:52 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The PLA does not own or manage any private businesses. They are, however, massively on the take and have the power to, well, expedite or shut down businesses on the flimsiest of excuses. Further, many of the businesses that they have "got out of" are now run by... former PLA officers. Former PLA officers who got their nominally civilian positions through 关系 (guanxi -- "relationship") with the people who are still in the PLA and who send a flow of money and goods through that link. So, officially the PLA is out of private business. Practically, it is out of private business except for the sucking up the money part of it. --MTR (严加华) 16:16, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Removed

The connection between these private businesses and the army seems in practice to remain quite strong.

Yes, there are large numbers of businesses which are run by former PLA officers, but the important thing is that they are retired PLA officers, and not active ones. Also, one of the *big* parts of the Jiang reforms of the 1990's is that the PLA itself is not now funded by private businesses. Jiang stopped the flow of money to the PLA from private businesses and in exchange massively increased state funding.

So I wouldn't say that the connection between private businesses and the PLA is strong now. One of the big reason that the reforms were successful was that no one lost. If you were a PLA army officer making huge amounts of money in real estate, you just retired and then kept making huge amounts of money in real estate. The fact that you are no longer connected to the PLA really works in your favor, because you no longer need to turn over any funds to the PLA and can keep it all for yourself, and you don't have to waste any time doing army stuff that you weren't really interested in doing anyway. You can't count on people actively in the military to bail you out anymore, but with your old army buddies and lots of money to spread around, I think you can easily make up for that lost guanxi.

Roadrunner 21:37, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What's the difference between this and the rotating doors found in american government, both military and civilian? Retired officers enter the private sector, many times into the arms trade, certainly a possible comflict of interest there too? --Sirkeg 04:17, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Anybody got information about PLA recruitment policies and actual trained reserves potential? I don't think that all males of the right age qualify as reserves there.

PLA recruitment welcome university graduates, as well as robust young boys. BUT, they need to apply or to be recommended and then compete with others.

Could PLA sports be metioned? It is a small topic for PLA, but it is notable in Chinese sport.Skyfiler 01:17, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Soldiers in the PLA are not conscripts, that's definitely true, but high school students do receive some sort of military training for something like one week. I mean there are 1.3 billion people in China, if they do have conscription, the country will be bankrupt. The fact that China has a large population means that it does not have to rely on conscription. In fact, the PLA claims that the large number of soldiers it has is hindering its modernization.

Budget

I don't think that it is really NPOV to use the US DOD estimates of military spending(like the 4.3%GDP estimate for China). The US DOD tends to use (generally inflated) estimates of total defence-related spending when it discusses potentail adversaries, while it only uses the official military budget when discussing the budget of the US and it's allies. A different source like SIPRI would probably be more objective.--Todd Kloos 04:24, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Not male only

In PRC male and female are conscripted for service in PLA. Francesco PLA soldiers are not conscripts but it is definitely true that there are female soldiers in the PLA, in contrast to the all male ROC (Taiwan) army

Whoever says that PLA is an all male army is stupid, my mom served in the PLA for 16 years, 1970-1986.

Gender equality is an important part of Chinese communist ideology so it would be inconsistent to have an all male military --Sirkeg 22:06, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Number of troops

Does anyone know how the 7,024,000 total number of troops number was determined? Even based on the other figures here, it is way too high:

PLA: 2.25 mn Paras: 1.0 mn Unknown: 3.774 mn Total: 7.024 mn

--David O'Rear (Hong Kong)

Agreed - where does that number come from? I'm fairly certain this should be changed. --67.134.207.224 (talk) 18:45, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

What is with the table in the top right corner? How can there be 0.1 people available for military service? (available=602,831,241,1)

Dedekmraz (talk) 10:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

=====================================================================

Not to minimize the importance of a single human life but in terms of numbers, it seems silly to include numbers in this article such as "600,000,001 males" being available for military service. Obviously these numbers are in constant flux and percentage-wise it seems literally absurd. It's like saying that Air Force One does "701 miles per hour"; that's sheer nonsense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.127.200.152 (talk) 01:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It's meant to show that it's 600 million not rounded off, but exact. You can round 590 million off to 600 million, where is less than a 2% difference, but it's much more precise if you add in an extra 1 to show that it was not estimated or 'rounded off.'

Controversial

is labelling China's military spending as "contriversal" fair, is this not an opinionated comment?

It may be fair, but I don't believe it's accurate. Controversial has connotations i think are not warranted here. --Sirkeg 20:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Education

I would like to know for the PLA and its officers, if they are required a certain degree or level of education? the US commissioned officers are required a university degree... British officers, not necessarily as NCOs, but i think these are rare cases... anyone know the answer to this? hard to find any info out there...

Good luck looking for it... The Chinese government doesn't even allow mentioning unit numbers/names in public - so where you might see "the fifth fleet" in a US news report, in an equivalent Chinese news report it would say "a certain fleet of the PLA Navy..." --Sumple (Talk) 09:25, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Minor edit, added link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_armoured_fighting_vehicles#China Adeptitus 00:03, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Added small link to China & Weapons of Mass Destruction under Nuclear arms section. Adeptitus 00:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Minor re-formatting

I reformatted the PLA-related entries to make them look a little better. The photos and tables shouldn't clash with section-bars, or have text over-runs now. -- Adeptitus 05:29, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

|}==PLA Today== Guys, I don't think this has enough on the PLA today. It's as if it started out as a history article. I think people want to know about the PLA today, not so much how it developed. Plus random stuff on things like lasers isn't terribly necessary. Anyone willing to do a major edit? John Smith's 11:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I noticed the link to the ground forces. Never mind. John Smith's 11:24, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

For consideration:

Chinese military ranks

In the National Revolutionary Army#Organisation, there is a breakdown of combat units (from Squad (班) to Military Region (軍區). Could someone provide something similar for the early days of the People's Liberation Army and a translation of the command ie 班长 = ?, 排长 = ?, etc to English? I am attempting to write a page on a Chinese general Han Xianchu and would much appreciate the support.

forgot to sign Hanfresco 20:29, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The old names for officer ranks were labelled according to their command units. For example a lieutenant was a Platoon Commander, a captain was a Company Commander, etc, so a Major-General was a Division Commander. 81.159.82.167 (talk) 22:34, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Hanfresco, Military rank was introduced in 1955, and lasted until the GPCR. Han Xianchu was one of the 55 soldiers given the third highest rank, General, below Senior General (10) and Marshal (10). Ranks were restored in the 1980s, but General Han had retired from active duty by then. David O'Rear (Hong Kong)

Nanotech Molecular Assembler

Can Sumple explain why the Chinese Nanotech Molecular Assembler, part of the Project 863 who was founded in China to develop post-nuclear super weapons in seven fields can not be mentionned in this article? If it is really a "sci-fi novel", them is Newsmax^[1] disinforming the public ?

--58.136.48.26 06:26, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I have already replied to your original message at User talk:Sumple. --Sumple (Talk) 06:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Millitary Spending

The entire paragraph is USA-centric. All sentences but the opening one are about the USA.---Hillgentleman 04:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

• Bleh, we're all very much aware of the "threat" the PRC military poses to the West, but I'm curious as hell what the rest of South East Asia thinks of them. Shadowrun 18:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

-- Well, Taiwan certainly is aware of the threat!

-- And China is aware of Taiwan! (as a threat)

Is the spending in 2009 really 4.3% of GDP? 70.3 billion out of 4.9 trillion is not 4.3%. The data is contradicting the one listed here List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures as well. 118.209.223.163 (talk) 10:39, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Espionage

Shouldn't there be info on stealing from the US? [2]

Seems rather obvious. After all, isn't it the job of the armed forces to be prepared?

Well, I guess if you can googled it up, it must be true. After all, it is the internet. Oh and sign your name. 24.89.245.62 22:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Conscription

"In the unlikely event for the need of a conscription, it would be the only military in the world capable of standing against all other militaries in the world alone (assuming there is no nuclear warfare involved)."

Sounds like a risky POV assumption to me. Battle Ape 04:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds just plain wrong, to me. Warfare hasn't been about sheer numbers -- and nothing else -- since the Stone Age. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:39, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The above mentioned quote is not merely wrong, but it is deceptive as well. Conscription of a populace in excess of 1.2 billion would be next to impossible. And if the general populace is in opposition to the war, mass revolts could happen as well. A military of 5-7 million cannot handle nearly a billion revolting people. Also, this is hubris because of the sheer strength of the weapons of other nations. Even our conventional weapons could take out large swaths of military populace. Extremely biased quote. 67.142.162.36 (talk) 15:04, 30 March 2009 (UTC)Bobb

China and the Communist Party

Why do the (People's Republic) Chinese bother with having a party separate from the state (which is a one-party state to begin with), and having the army report to both? Why not just make the party the state? There, problem solved, no further hassles or hackles. 204.52.215.107 05:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you should ask your political professor that question. Consider I do not see how that have any uses here on Wikipedia. Yongke 07:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Basic Fact

In fact PLA is named New 4th Army and the 8th Route Army(in South China ans North China respectively) from 1937 to 1946, not Red Army. Fullmetalj 15:45, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Non-NPOV against PLA

Specifically the section on "PLA in internal security":

However, it was also the same PLA soldiers who drove tanks into the streets of Chinese capital city - Beijing, and then used guns to kill many unarmed innocent civilians during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

At best this section would be considered worded badly, at worst it would be non-NPOV without sources. In either case, this should be changed. I will go ahead and do so in a few days and a few other areas in the page to make it more NPOV. Yongke 08:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

SAR residents

Residents of the two Special Administrative Regions, Hong Kong and Macau, are prohibited from joining the PLA.

Need a citation for this. Roadrunner 09:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Nothing about the russian-chinese joint exercices?

i remember this, it was broadcasted on a chinese channel in 2005 probably. it was basically a landing exercice. it was quite impressive though. Cliché Online 12:23, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

See Shanghai Cooperation Organisation - the exercises were done in Kazakhstan. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 08:27, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Image

Military regions

isnt this image showing the disputed regions to be part of mainland? Jeroje 03:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Tibet?

Why does this article make no mention of the invasion of Tibet? Regardless of your POV regarding Tibet (so don't start shooting me down with that "Tibet was always part of China" POV), the PLA was still involved.

There is a specific article for that. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 08:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

And sign your entries. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 08:26, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

For Consideration

I mean, the table below. DOR (HK) (talk) 07:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Costco

I read on a blog that Costco was owned in part by the People's liberation army. It's a blog, so is not admissable as a source. Can anyone find a source to back this up? All I've found are blogs of different sorts...72.78.154.17 (talk) 15:20, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I have heard all sort of crazy things on blogs, this is the Internet, and well, you know. 24.224.182.97 (talk) 04:28, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

MND

This seems curious to me: The ministry assures continuing CCP control over the armed forces, and its primary role is that of a liaison office with foreign militaries. My first thought was that the MND has no role in assuring continued party control of the armed forces; that's the job of the political commissars. My second thought is, 'wait a minute; isn't the MND mainly about budgeting?' Comments welcome. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

China’s National Military Leadership

This should apply to the table at the bottom, but is stuck up here for some reason.

Can't figure out why my source is 'blacklisted': ref>http://www.giga-hamburg.de/dl/download.php?d=/content/ias/archiv/cds/cds_0804.pdf</ref DOR (HK) (talk) 07:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Living in China for several years

From what I heard from a Chinese university student, a close girl friend of mine, was that all Chinese students take part in military training for at least 1 month. That is at least in Guangzhou, the University city new complex. It has something like 100,000 students. I have no references, except my personal experience of living in China over 2 years.

Also, the PLA, from personal knowledge, has military bases in several city centers. I have visited a military base as part of the chamber of commerce of UK, Australia and New Zealand. In fact it was a military base right in the heart of the new district Tian He in Guangzhou. It was quite sensitive. No so called foreigners are allowed to rent any buildings facing the PLA base. They could rent the same buildings facing away from the base. 218.102.116.207 (talk) 22:16, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

And your point is...? Mxiong (talk) 12:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

His/her point is, that, all of China's civilian population born after 1981 (when the compulsory military training was established) is a potential militia. This is true - all high school students spend a couple of weeks in training, which includes basic firearms usage, obstacle courses, martial arts, physical training, fence-climbing, etc. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 08:23, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

info box

Shouldn't the information box in the top-left hand corner include the 1st Artillery Corps?

• PLA
• PLAN
• PLAAF
• PLA 1st Artillery Corps
• PLA 2nd Artillery Corps

The Second Artillery Corps is responsible for ballistic and cruise missiles. The First Artillery Corps is reponsible for all ground-based, ground fired artillery. (incl. towed artillery, rocket barrage-based weaponry, etc) -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 01:01, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

EDIT: Some error? This should not be here. I did not write the table below --V -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 01:03, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

1st Artillery Corps does not exist!--刻意(Kèyì) 16:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Problems

This article has quite a few grammer problems throughout, mainly missing words, also some paragraphs aren't that clear. Could do with a look and re-write in places. QueenCake (talk) 19:38, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Retired servicemen

The lead section says:The PLA is formally under the command of the Central Military Commission of the CCP(Chinese Communist Party), so when the soldiers and the officers retired from the force, is there any official body/or departments would look after their welfare? This article seems to just ignore this topic, it seems very strange. Arilang ^talk 05:37, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

"Defence" or "Defense"?

The spelling "defense" was used 28 times in this article, and "defence" was used 6 times. Aren't there any wikipedia spelling policies? Personally I think "defence" is the better option, because "defense" is only used in the US whereas "defence" is used everywhere else. Look at the Wikipedia:Spelling comparison chart and you can see right away that this is true. So what do you guys think? 24.87.73.39 (talk) 04:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Frigate

There's a discussion on the frigate article which editors here may be interested in. 88.106.70.5 (talk) 02:08, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

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Title	Name	Date assumed
Military Commission Chair	Hu Jintao	Sept 2004
: Vice Chair	Guo Boxiong	Nov 2002
: Vice Chair	Xu Caihou	Sept 2004
: General Political Dept Director	Li Jinai	Sept 2004
: General Logistics Dept Director	Liao Xilong	Nov 2002
: General Armament Dept Director	Chang Wanquan	Oct 2007
PLA Discipline Inspection Secretary	Su Zhongtong	May 2001
Chief of Staff	Chen Bingde	Sept 2007
PLA Navy Commander	Wu Shengli	Aug 2006
: Navy Political Commissar (PC)	Hu Yanlin	June 2003
PLA Air Force Commander	Xu Qiliang	Sept 2007
: Air Force PC	Deng Changyou	May 2002
Second Artillery Commander	Jing Zhiyuan	Jan 2003
: Second Artillery PC	Peng Xiaofeng	Dec 2003
Beijing Military Region (MR) Commander	Fang Fenghui	Jul 2007
: Beijing MR PC	Fu Tinggui	Dec 2003
Chengdu MR Commander	Li Shiming	Sept 2007
: Chengdu MR PC	Zhang Haiyang	Dec 2005
Guangzhou MR Commander	Zhang Qinsheng	Jun 2006
: Guangzhou MR PC	Zhang Yang	Sep 2007
Jinan MR Commander	Fan Changlong	Sep 2004
: Jinan MR PC	Liu Dongdong	Nov 2002
Lanzhou MR Commander	Wang Guosheng	Jul 2007
: Lanzhou MR PC	Li Changcai	Sept 2007
Nanjing MR Commander	Zhao Keshi	Jul 2007
: Nanjing MR PC	Chen Guoling	Jul 2007
Shenyang MR Commander	Zhang Youxia	Oct 2007
: Shenyang MR PC	Huang Xianzhong	Dec 2005