BEIJING – President Xi Jinping has signed China’s first-ever decree ontraining of the country’s two million-strong military, the world’s largest,to improve the combat readiness of armed forces, official media reported onTuesday.
Xi, 65, regarded as the most powerful Chinese leader after Mao Zedongheading the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), the military andPresidency, has signed an order to release a trial regulation on thesupervision of military training, the first of its kind in the country.
The regulation, which will take effect on March 1, focuses on improving thecombat readiness of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), state-run Xinhuanews agency reported.
It formulates measures to rectify practices that are inconsistent with therequirements of actual combats. It also details the criteria foridentifying malpractices and discipline violations during military training.
The regulation also states the responsibilities, power and priorities ofmilitary training supervision and regularises the methods and proceduresfor carrying out such work.
The regulation is expected to consolidate the strategic role of militarytraining under the new circumstances, strengthen the management of militarytraining, and deepen military training under combat conditions, the reportsaid.Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has been carrying out aggressivereforms of the military, which included real time combative training,reorganisation of the command structures as well as downsizing the army,ramping up Navy and Airforce to enhance China’s strategic global outreach.
The Chinese military which has an annual budget of over USD 175 billion isinvesting heavily in modernisation of the navy.While the navy is beingexpanded with aircraft carriers, observers say battle ships and submarinesare being added on almost monthly basis.
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China has one aircraft carrier, another undergoing sea trial and the thirdone is being constructed at a feverish pace.Official media reports sayChina plans to have four to five aircraft carriers in the near future.
A recent report said Beijing plans to have four nuclear aircraftcarriers.In terms of aircraft, China is building new jets for the aircraftcarriers, besides stealth planes.
President Xi has also been pushing the military into real time militaryexercises emulating battle conditions.The new decree on training came amidreports of criticism on lack of rigorous training of the PLA troops withnew hardware which could prove costly in real battle conditions.
Training, not hardware, is key to military preparations and size is noteverything in modern warfare and it is the people who use these weaponsthat count, Wang Yunfei, a retired Chinese naval officer said in a rarepublic appraisal of the levels of training of PLA Navy and Air force whichhe said were inadequate compared with Japanese troops.
