| Summary/Abstract |
Encapsulated by the phrase “junwei guanzong, zhanqu zhuzhan, junzhong zhujian” (overall management by the Central Military Commission (CMC), operational focus by theatres and force building by service headquarters), the recent PLA organisational reforms have been more ambitious than anticipated. Broadly covering higher defence reorganisation, tighter Party and CMC control, downsizing and joint operation requirements, the reforms have also led to the reorganisation of the seven Military Regions (MRs) to five theatre commands. This article links the PLA theoretical military writings to the reorganisation of the theatre commands to understand the rationale for the reorganisation. The article primarily uses PLA Academy of Military Science publications, The Science of Military Strategy 2005 (hereafter referred to as SOS 2005) available in English and the Zhanlue Xue 2013 (hereafter referred to as ZX 2013), available as of now in Chinese.
|