Jake's View | President Xi Jinping's overhaul of China's military all part of ruling party's divide-and-rule plan

The overhaul is aimed at moving away from an army-centric system towards a Western-style joint command in which the army, navy and air force are equally represented.

The South China Morning Post reported in September that an overhaul of the PLA would phase out Soviet-style command structures in favour of a US-style model.

The American statesman Benjamin Franklin once famously said that a standing army is an aid to domestic bliss, but a temptation to foreign ventures.

It is, of course, not exactly what he said. He actually compared a standing army to a male organ in having these effects. But we clean up these rather frank statements to which Franklin was prone and we similarly do not say all there is to be said of the military.