Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF) to transition from a massive army geared towards defense to a smaller but attack-oriented fighting force capable of taking on enemies of the Communist Party of China (CPC) anywhere in the world.
The transition to a smaller and more professional army in the mold of the United States Army Xi wants, however, will entail demobilizing hundreds of thousands of men out of the 1.6 million men in the PLAGF, which is the largest standing army in the world.
Xi, however, made no mention of what he wanted to do with the 500,000 man reserve force backing-up the PLAGF.
The PLAGF's main rival, the United States Army, has a strength of 475,000 active personnel. There are also over 180,000 fighting men in the United States Marine Corps. The army has a reserve of 540,000 personnel (including the National Guard) while the Marine reserve force numbers close to 40,000 men and women.
The PLAGF has no capability of projecting its power anywhere outside mainland Asia since the People's Liberation Army Navy neither has sufficient troop ships to transport masses of Chinese soldiers overseas nor control of the seas, which is wielded by the U.S. Navy.
On the other hand, the U.S. Army and Marines can deploy to any location in the world at short notice.
The PLAGF is basically an impotent fighting force as it is currently constructed. Xi's admonition the PLAGF modernize by reducing its ranks while relying more on technology instead of massive numbers of men is an effort to create a smaller army with better combat capability.
"This is a major, inevitable change," said Xi. "We must seize the opportunity and make breakthroughs."
Xi said changes must be made if China is to build a strong world-class army. He also spoke about informationized warfare, noting that joint operations have grown to be the basic form of combat.
"Accordingly, there have been new changes in terms of the military's size, structure, and formation, which features smaller in size, more capable in strength, modulization and multi-functionality, with scientific factors playing bigger roles," he said.
He argued that the military's structure must be readjusted and optimized; new type of forces developed; the ratios between different types of forces be rationalized and the number and the scale of the military downsized.
He said the PLAGF must grow into modern armed forces with Chinese characteristics, which can win informationized wars and implement its missions.
"Quantity should be reduced, quality improved to build a capable and efficient modernized standing army."
He believes China must develop a joint operation force system with an elite force at its core.
In March 2014, the CPC Central Military Commission (CMC) whose chairman is Xi, issued a guidance demanding the level of military training be raised to actual combat standards to improve the PLA's capabilities.
The guidance stressed improving combat readiness should be top priority.
In 2013, Xi said raising the capability of the PLAGF to win wars was one of the fundamentals of building a strong army, the others being the command of the CPC and having a proper working style.