PLA Art Troupes Shrink as China’s Military Faces Restructuring

The art troupe in China’s northeast military region has been disbanded as part the ongoing massive restructuring of the People’s Liberation Army.

The Global Times reported Monday that the art troupe under the Nanjing Military Area Command has been shut down, citing a PLA Daily report referring to the troupe's performers as being "formerly" of the Nanjing Military Region.

During September's military parade in Beijing, President Xi Jinping announced that 300,000 soldiers would be demobilized as part of a far-reaching reform initiative.

After the military announced that the demobilized soldiers would mostly be made up of noncombat personnel or come from units with "outdated equipment," many argued that the PLA art troupes fit these criteria and should be streamlined.

"The restructuring of the PLA art troupes will mostly consist of changes to their structure and size; their tasks and functions will not change," Cai Xiaoxin, an expert on military history, told the Global Times.

The opera and modern drama troupes under the PLA General Political Department are now under the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission, according to the PLA Daily report.

"I think the art troupes of the military will not completely disappear," said Major General Xu Guangyu, a senior consultant of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, adding that a group of "high-level art workers" will be retained.

Art troupes used to play a key role in boosting soldiers' morale and promoting unity, but diversified means for public relations and entertainment within the military has caused their glamour to diminish, Xu said.

Art troupes have also been under fire along with other military agencies for supposed discipline violations in recent years. Several members of art troupes have been arrested over corruption charges under Xi's anti-graft campaign, the China Newsweek magazine reported in Sept. 2015.

Approximately 2,000 personnel work in PLA art troupes, according to Tang Dong, former director of the Artistic Creation Department of the Song and Dance Ensemble under the Guangzhou Military Area Command.

"We don't need to worry about the future of troupe members who leave the military in this round of reform," Xu said, adding that the troupe members will have a higher degree of freedom and more opportunities to realize their potential after leaving the military and returning to society.

Streamlining the art troupes is necessary as they have become a drain on the military's resources, Xu said.

Song Zhongping, a Beijing-based military expert, said that reforming the art troupes will help boost the army's ability to fight.

"It will close a channel of privilege, through which many are recruited into senior military positions," Song told the Global Times on Thursday, noting the reforms will improve the morale of grassroots officers and soldiers.

"The over-commercialization of the PLA art troupes in the past years greatly influenced the fighting capacity of the military," Song said, adding that the military really needs people that "can fight the battle and win the war."

Song argued that the military's cultural and artistic needs can be fulfilled by having to "purchase services from the market when needed" and that officers and soldiers can be "satisfied in a self-organizing fashion based on their own interests and talents."

"The role of soldiers in the military's cultural and art work should be shifted from passive receptors to active participators, which will turn the current one-way cultural and art system into a more interactive one," he added.

However, Cai said that it is impractical for the military to purchase services given the military's requirements for art workers, including confidentiality, discipline and the spirit of self-sacrifice, need to perform in China's remote outposts.

"One of the PLA's good traditions in terms of cultural and art work is that the art troupes will go to the frontier to perform for the front-line soldiers," Cai said.