Chinese People's Liberation Army | |||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Simplified Chinese | 中国人民解放军 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 中國人民解放軍 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Literal meaning | "China People Liberation Army" | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
People's Liberation Army |
---|
Executive departments |
Staff |
Services |
Arms |
Domestic troops |
Special operations force |
Military districts |
History of the Chinese military |
Military ranks of China |
China portal |
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the military force of the People's Republic of China. It consists of four services — Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force — and four arms — Aerospace Force, Cyberspace Force, Information Support Force, and Joint Logistics Support Force. It is led by the Central Military Commission (CMC) with its chairman as commander-in-chief.
The PLA can trace its origins during the Republican Era to the left-wing units of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT) when they broke away in 1927 in an uprising against the nationalist government as the Chinese Red Army, before being reintegrated into the NRA as units of New Fourth Army and Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The two NRA communist units were reconstituted as the PLA in 1947.[9] Since 1949, the PLA has used nine different military strategies, which it calls "strategic guidelines". The most important came in 1956, 1980, and 1993.[10] In times of national emergency, the People's Armed Police (PAP) and the China Militia act as a reserve and support element for the Ground Force. Politically, the PLA and PAP are represented in the National People's Congress (NPC) through a delegation of 285 deputies, all of whom are CCP members. Since the formation of the NPC, the joint PLA–PAP delegation has always constituted the largest delegation and today comprises just over 9% of the NPC.[11]
PRC law explicitly asserts the leadership of the CCP over the armed forces of China and designates the CMC as the nationwide military command of the People's Republic of China. The Party CMC operates under the name of the State CMC for legal and governmental functions, and the ceremonial Ministry of National Defense is limited to diplomatic functions. The PLA is obliged to follow the principle of the CCP's absolute civilian control of the military under the doctrine of "the party commands the gun" (Chinese: 党指挥枪; pinyin: Dǎng zhǐhuī qiāng) In this sense, the PLA is not a national army of the type of traditional nation-states, but a political army or the armed wing of the CCP itself since its allegiance is to the party only and not the state or any constitution. At present, the CMC chairman is customarily also the CCP general secretary.
Today, the majority of military units around the country are assigned to one of five theatre commands by geographical location. The PLA is the world's largest military force (not including paramilitary or reserve forces) and has the second largest defence budget in the world. China's military expenditure was US$296 billion in 2023, accounting for 12 percent of the world's defence expenditures. It is also one of the fastest modernizing militaries in the world, and has been termed as a potential military superpower, with significant regional defence and rising global power projection capabilities.[12][13]: 259
:4
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Benton-1999
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).© MMXXIII Rich X Search. We shall prevail. All rights reserved. Rich X Search