By Ankit Panda
Xi Jinping’s announcement of a major troop cut in the PLA caught even China’s military by surprise.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his opening remarks at China’s September 3 parade to celebrate Japan’s defeat in World War II, made a surprise announcement: the Chinese People’s Liberation Army would reduce its troop count by 300,000. Since the 1980s, the PLA has restructured and been cut four times, in 1985, 1997, 2003, and finally, in 2015, with Xi’s announcement.
Xi, in his speech, pitched the troop cut as a gesture of good will and a manifestation of China’s desire for peace. Analysts and observers of China’s military affairs, however, note that the cut allows Beijing to balance its military spending away from infantry and personnel costs toward modernization and its navy — its 2015 defense white paper, for example, says that the PLA needs to abandon “the traditional mentality that land outweighs sea.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat