Exclusive | PLA officers in the line of fire as China's plan to axe 300,000 military personnel targets top brass over rank-and-file
Retrenchment and early-retirement packages to be offered and two military commands to be shut down, sources say
Officers will account for more than half of the 300,000 personnel to go in President Xi Jinping's plans to streamline the PLA, two sources close to the military told the South China Morning Post.
At least 170,000 officers, ranging from lieutenants to senior colonels, in the country's land forces would be laid off after two of the existing seven military commands and three army corps were scrapped, one source said on Friday.
But the massive downsizing plans, exclusively revealed by the Post on Wednesday, were also aimed at encouraging pilots from the land forces to merge into the air force and navy, as part of the PLA's drive to master joint operational warfare.
One of the sources said the People's Liberation Army would announce some details of the downsizing as early as middle of this month.
Defence Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said on Thursday that the decision to shed 300,000 military personnel was aimed at further modernising and restructuring the army, and the lay-offs would be completed by 2017.
Each key military command has two to three army corps, with each corps having 30,000 to 50,000 troops.