China’s military ‘gets final say on weapons’ with new combat-readiness rules
- Orders directed at Chinese armament firms designed to improve the testing and assessment of equipment in the drive for upgraded forces: experts
- New regulations come as Xi demands the military be ‘capable of fighting and winning wars’ and as the PLA faces immense challenges in the region
The changes, announced last weekend and endorsed by Central Military Commission chairman Xi Jinping, are part of a bigger, years-long push to overhaul the armed forces and create a modern, combat-ready military.
“The main purpose of the regulations is to let the PLA make the final decision, because they are the weapon consumers,” said Zhou Chenming, a researcher from the Yuan Wang military science and technology think tank in Beijing.
“That means the PLA will take the initiative to test and assess new weapons and equipment, and even has the right to take part in the development of new weapons.”
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The growth of Chinese military power over the past four decades
The regulations raised performance and quality requirements for new weapons and equipment development.
State news agency Xinhua reported that all new weapons should be able to cope with real combat in modern warfare, which was trending towards computerisation and artificial intelligence.
“In the past, arms companies would persuade the PLA to buy their products, whether they needed to or not, because the military was told to keep the orders to help defence industry workers keep their jobs,” Zhou said.
After listening to PLA feedback, the state-owned defence companies would try to develop upgraded variants for the Chinese military, but the approach was still outdated when compared with that of Western counterparts, he added.
“The new regulations could be seen as part of the ongoing military modernisation to improve China’s weapon development, which will help the PLA strengthen combat-readiness.”
Those revisions clarified the missions of different sectors and units in the PLA, ordering the entire armed forces to set up an efficient command system to better manage troops and weapons, with the ultimate goal of building a modern fighting force.
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“Indeed, both the rules of military equipment [released in last January] and the recent new regulations are all supplementary stipulations within the National Defence Law, which highlighted the superiority of the CMC, with the CMC chairman having legitimacy to sign and release military regulations,” Zeng said.
“It was because all the four former headquarters – staff, politics, logistics and armaments – that once had their own team to come up with work regulations were all scrapped when Xi introduced the military overhaul in 2016.”
“It does make sense for the CMC to issue such kinds of regulations with Chinese characteristics, meaning the country’s future scientific technology, weapon and equipment development projects may need to be driven by the PLA’s combat needs,” Zeng said.
