China’s missile forces get a new tech-focused commander
Zhou Yaning’s promotion is part of a military reshuffle ahead of party congress
China has a new commander of its powerful strategic and tactical missile forces, according to state media reports.
Lieutenant General Zhou Yaning, 59, has taken over as chief of the Rocket Force, replacing General Wei Fenghe, who retired.
The Rocket Force was known as the Second Artillery Corps until 2015 when it was renamed as part of President Xi Jinping’s sweeping military overhaul.
Zhou made his first public appearance as its new commander this week when he attended a ceremony paying tribute to Xiang Shouzhi, a Chinese general who died early this month, Thepaper.cn reported on Saturday.
Like most Chinese generals, there is little information publicly available on Zhou. According to his official biography, Zhou joined the People’s Liberation Army in 1976 and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general in July 2016.
In a report in the official PLA Daily newspaper in 2014, when Zhou was a divisional commander of the missile forces, he told soldiers to study an article on the 1894 Sino-Japanese war that called on the modern military to make sure it was ready for battle. The Qing dynasty lost the war to Japan in what is seen in China as a national humiliation.