PLA to announce overhaul: five 'strategic zones' will replace regional commands, most army HQ to be scrapped
General Liu Yuan bids farewell as last political commissar of General Logistics Department, while sources say new West zone will be home to more than third of land-based forces
The People’s Liberation Army is close to announcing how it will be organised into five new “strategic zones” and the army’s four headquarters regrouped, according to sources, as part of a huge overhaul to modernise and improve the efficiency and combat readiness of the military.
General Liu Yuan, political commissar of the PLA’s General Logistics Department, one of the army’s four headquarters, wrote a farewell letter to staff on Wednesday saying he would be “the last political commissar of Logistics” and that he would “absolutely obey the reforms”, introduced by President Xi Jinping.
Liu’s farewell was circulated among Beijing military officials and was posted by Luo Yuan, a retired PLA major general, on his social media account.
The letter indicated that the army’s powerful Central Military Commission, chaired by Xi, would scrap three of the four army headquarters: the General Political department, General Logistics and General Armaments. Only the General Staff department stays.
The South China Morning Post reported in September that the PLA military overhaul included plans to consolidate the seven regional commands into five units and to reorganise the four army headquarters.
One of the sources said that Liu was likely to be the secretary of the new military discipline inspection commission.