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91-773: The Eyuwan Soviet recruited a disproportionate number of officers and cadres for the Chinese Communists. Even in the early 1950s, over 70% of division-level commanders and higher in the People's Liberation Army were originally from this region. Nonetheless, the Soviet's association with Zhang Guotao—who left the Communist Party in 1938 and joined the Kuomintang —has damaged its historical reputation in China. During

182-459: A Kuomintang brigade and take 2,000 prisoners. A later offensive resulted in the capture of a Kuomintang general (a descendant of Song Dynasty general Yue Fei ) and 5,000 soldiers. In April 1931, Chiang Kai-shek ordered another offensive on the area, with He Yingqin in direct command. Ji Hongchang , one of the generals in this campaign, refused to fight the communists and attempted negotiations instead. Using this to frame Xu as collaborator with

273-545: A Red Army officer named Gao Jingting  [ zh ] to chairman of the Eyuwan Soviet. Gao had a reputation for brutality against rich peasants and landlords. In order to "comb out" rich peasants, any Red army soldiers who were literate were dismissed. The purges led to opposition against Zhang from wide sections of the party and peasantry. They eventually came to an end during the latter half of 1932. Soldiers who had been purged for their literacy but had stayed with

364-597: A humanitarian and medical training practice conducted in Gabon. For the past 10 to 20 years, the PLA has acquired some advanced weapons systems from Russia, including Sovremenny class destroyers , Sukhoi Su-27 and Sukhoi Su-30 aircraft, and Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines. It has also started to produce several new classes of destroyers and frigates including the Type 052D class guided-missile destroyer. In addition,

455-573: A major factor in the Fourth Red Army's defeat was its decision to adopt more conventional tactics. The mass of the peasantry was unfriendly to Nationalists and so Nationalist armies had to rely on local elites to provide food, a method that was unreliable and made them vulnerable to supply problems. The Communists failed to capitalize on this logistical weakness when they decided not to fight a guerrilla war. The Fourth Red Army retreated to border region between Shaanxi and Sichuan , leaving behind

546-737: A major threat, and the new threats to China are seen to be a declaration of independence by Taiwan , possibly with assistance from the United States, or a confrontation over the Spratly Islands . In 1985, under the leadership of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the CMC, the PLA changed from being constantly prepared to "hit early, strike hard and to fight a nuclear war" to developing

637-793: A member of the CMC. Previously, the PLA was governed by four general departments; the General Political, the General Logistics, the General Armament, and the General Staff Departments. These were abolished in 2016 under the military reforms undertaken by Xi Jinping, replaced with 15 new functional departments directly reporting to the CMC: Included among the 15 departments are three commissions. The CMC Discipline Inspection Commission

728-525: A reduced role in political affairs and limited budgets; the military was downsized to free resources for economic development . The lack of oversight, ineffective self-regulation, and Jiang Zemin 's and Hu Jintao 's lack of close personal ties to the PLA, led to systemic corruption that persisted through the late-2010s. Jiang's attempt to divest the PLA of its commercial interests was only partly successful as many were still run by close associates of PLA officers. Corruption lowered readiness and proficiency,

819-454: A result of its egalitarian organization, the early PLA overturned strict traditional hierarchies that governed the lives of peasants. As sociologist Alessandro Russo summarizes, the peasant composition of the PLA hierarchy was a radical break with Chinese societal norms and "overturned the strict traditional hierarchies in unprecedented forms of egalitarianism[.]" In the PRC's early years, the PLA

910-725: A rotational basis to combat the Ebola virus outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau. As of 2023, this was the PLA's largest medical assistance mission in another country. China re-organized its military from 2015 to 2016 . In 2015, the PLA formed new units including the PLA Ground Force, the PLA Rocket Force and the PLA Strategic Support Force. In 2016, the CMC replaced

1001-408: A single body. The only difference in membership between the two occurs for a few months every five years, during the period between a Party National Congress , when Party CMC membership changes, and the next ensuing National People's Congress, when the state CMC changes. The CMC is composed of a chairman , vice chairpersons and regular members. The chairman of the CMC is the commander-in-chief of

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1092-478: A small force to carry out guerilla warfare. The main force lost half of its troops during the fighting and subsequent retreat, being reduced to 15,000 men. The forces left behind began a protracted guerrilla war against the Nationalists. They hid in the mountains and eked out a living by foraging and organizing poor peasants to seize grain kept by landlords and public granaries. Gao Jingting and Xu Haidong became

1183-462: A traditional nation-state military. It is a part, and the armed wing, of the CCP and controlled by the party, not by the state. The PLA's primary mission is the defense of the party and its interests. The PLA is the guarantor of the party's survival and rule, and the party prioritizes maintaining control and the loyalty of the PLA. According to Chinese law, the party has leadership over the armed forces and

1274-609: Is charged with rooting out corruption. The CCP maintains absolute control over the PLA. It requires the PLA to undergo political education, instilling CCP ideology in its members. Additionally, China maintains a political commissar system. Regiment-level and higher units maintain CCP committees and political commissars ( Chinese : 政治委员 or 政委 ). Additionally, battalion-level and company-level units respectively maintain political directors and political instructors. The political workers are officially equal to commanders in status. The political workers are officially responsible for

1365-415: Is the PLA's interface with state and foreign entities and insulates the PLA from external influence. Today, the majority of military units around the country are assigned to one of five theatre commands by geographical location. The PLA is the world's largest military force (not including paramilitary or reserve forces ) and has the second largest defence budget in the world. China's military expenditure

1456-602: The First and Second Encirclement Campaigns against the Eyuwan Soviet. In January 1931, the First Red Army was combined with the Fifteenth Red Army to form the Fourth Red Army, under the command of Xu Xiangqian . The Fourth Red Army numbered twenty thousand soldiers. The Communist Party's factional disputes increasingly involved Eyuwan as the soviet grew larger and more important. The first of these followed

1547-871: The Long March . During the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945, the CCP's military forces were nominally integrated into the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China forming two main units, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army . During this time, these two military groups primarily employed guerrilla tactics , generally avoiding large-scale battles with the Japanese, at

1638-784: The May Fourth Movement . In 1920, he went to Anqing . In April 1921, he joined the Communist Youth League of China . In 1923, Xu left Anhui for Shanghai , enrolling in Shanghai University . In 1924, Xu entered the Whampoa Military Academy and joined the Chinese Communist Party . He quickly rose through the ranks from platoon commander to deputy company commander to company commander, ultimately rising to

1729-804: The Nanjing Military Region (1954–74), Yang Dezhi in the Jinan Military Region (1958–74), Chen Xilian in the Shenyang Military Region (1959–73), and Han Xianchu in the Fuzhou Military Region (1960–74). In the early days of the Cultural Revolution, the PLA abandoned the use of the military ranks that it had adopted in 1955. The establishment of a professional military force equipped with modern weapons and doctrine

1820-678: The National Revolutionary Army rebelled under the leadership of Zhu De , He Long , Ye Jianying , Zhou Enlai , and other leftist elements of the Kuomintang (KMT), after the Shanghai massacre in 1927. They were then known as the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army , or simply the Red Army. In 1934 and 1935, the Red Army survived several campaigns led against it by Chiang Kai-Shek 's KMT and engaged in

1911-452: The People's Liberation Army were natives of Eyuwan." Just one county, Huang'an, was the home of over 200 PLA generals. Huang'an was also the home of Dong Biwu and Li Xiannian , both of whom would serve as President of the People's Republic of China . Nonetheless, the historiography of Eyuwan in the People's Republic of China was largely negative for many years. Zhang Guotao defected from

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2002-543: The People's Republic of China . It consists of four services — Ground Force , Navy , Air Force , and Rocket Force —and four arms— Aerospace Force , Cyberspace Force , Information Support Force , and Joint Logistics Support Force . It is led by the Central Military Commission (CMC) with its chairman as commander-in-chief . The PLA can trace its origins during the Republican Era to

2093-825: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by supporting the Afghan mujahidin and ramping up their military presence near Afghanistan in Xinjiang. China acquired military equipment from the United States to defend itself from Soviet attacks. The PLA Ground Force trained and supported the Afghan Mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War, moving its training camps for the mujahideen from Pakistan into China itself. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of anti-aircraft missiles, rocket launchers, and machine guns were given to

2184-544: The de facto leaders of the largest force left behind, the Twenty-fifth Red Army. They were successful at preserving a Communist presence in the region for several more years. Nationalist extermination campaigns began to indiscriminately target the peasantry in areas where Communist influence was strong. Entire villages were burned to the ground; in one case, "3,500 people were said to have been buried alive in just one night". The disconnected Communist bases in

2275-685: The "example" of Mao's purges in the Central Soviet that had followed the Futian Incident. Despite Zhang Guotao being appointed vice chair of the Chinese Soviet Republic , the Eyuwan Soviet was so separated from the rest of the soviets south of the Yangtze that it did not send delegates to the founding ceremony. Instead, it held its own conference. Although some historians argue that this may have been partially caused by

2366-410: The CCP in 1938 and joined the Nationalists. Given Zhang's association with Eyuwan, this greatly damaged the regions reputation and most early assessments focused criticism on the excessiveness of Zhang's purges. People%27s Liberation Army Arms [REDACTED] General Zhang Youxia The People's Liberation Army ( PLA ) is the military of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and

2457-593: The CMC exercises supreme military command; the party and state CMCs are practically a single body by membership. Since 1989, the CCP general secretary has also held been the CMC Chairman; this grants significant political power as the only member of the Politburo Standing Committee with direct responsibilities for the armed forces. The Ministry of National Defense has no command authority; it

2548-480: The Chinese Communist Party. His "Li Lisan line" called for immediate attacks on major cities. However, unlike other soviets Eyuwan was still considered too small to serve as a base for one of these attacks. Local Communists were instead instructed to start trying to govern territory and stockpile food in preparation for a future assault on the cities. The latter policy eroded popular support among some peasants, who were already hard-pressed economically. During this period,

2639-589: The Chinese armed forces . A goal of the RMA is to transform the PLA into a force capable of winning what it calls "local wars under high-tech conditions" rather than a massive, numbers-dominated ground-type war. Chinese military planners call for short decisive campaigns, limited in both their geographic scope and their political goals. In contrast to the past, more attention is given to reconnaissance , mobility, and deep reach. This new vision has shifted resources towards

2730-565: The Chinese leadership with a stark realization that the PLA was an oversized, almost-obsolete force. The USA's sending of two aircraft carrier groups to the vicinity of Taiwan during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis prompted Jiang to order a ten-year PLA modernization program. The possibility of a militarized Japan has also been a continuous concern to the Chinese leadership since the late 1990s. In addition, China's military leadership has been reacting to and learning from

2821-571: The Communists began to go about reform more methodically. They published a "Temporary Land Law" which not only gave tenants the land they worked, but also confiscated excess landholdings from landlords and distributed them to landless peasants. The land reform process expanded gradually. At first the Communists only redistributed land from the largest landholders in the villages securely under their control. As they gained experience and strengthened their military position, more villages were included and

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2912-575: The Communists launched uprisings and established soviets to govern towns and villages across Eyuwan. Starting in February 1930, the Communists started to consolidate these local soviets into a single base area. The Eyuwan Soviet was established in June, governing an area of over a million people. The army divisions were combined into the First Red Army under Xu Jishen , which grew from two thousand to five thousand men. The First Red Army successfully defeated

3003-476: The Communists remained mobile, having to stay on the run from Nationalist armies. They slowly built up a following in the counties of Huang'an, Macheng , and Guangshan as the army passed through villages, organizing peasants as it went. They were helped by the fact that the Nationalists could not devote their full military strength to crushing the Communists. They were dealing with the Chiang-Gui War and

3094-670: The Dabie mountains continued to hold out well until late 1934. However, in November Xu Haidong was defeated and fled with the Twenty-fifth Red Army towards the Shaanxi-Sichuan base area. Nationalist commander Liang Guanying ( 梁冠英 ) was given 170,000 men to exterminate the remaining guerilla forces in Eyuwan. His system of checkpoints and blockhouses failed because the Communists were able to mobilize their supporters among

3185-479: The Eyuwan Soviet had a larger population than the Central Soviet, although it was slightly smaller in land area and had a smaller Red Army. After Zhang Guotao took charge in Eyuwan, his rivalry with Mao Zedong manifested as a rivalry between the two Soviets. Historian William Rowe cites a report Zhang submitted to the CCP Central Committee in which he defends his purges by claiming he was learning from

3276-579: The Fourth Red Army grew to 15,000 men. In March, the Fourth Red Army won the Battle of Shuangqiaozhen and captured a Nationalist Major General Yue (a descendant of Song Dynasty general Yue Fei ). By early 1931, however, Li had been completely ousted and his successors decided that Zeng was too closely associated with Li and needed to go. Wang Ming and the 28 Bolsheviks , the new faction in power, sent Zhang Guotao , Shen Zemin , and Chen Changhao to Eyuwan to take over. Zhang came into immediate conflict with

3367-638: The Fourth Red Army had to abandon the Soviet in 1932, female Communist leader Zhang Qinqiu stayed behind to care for her dying husband. In November 1932, Zhang was appointed Director of the General Political Department of the Fourth Front Army, the highest war-time position ever held by a woman in the Chinese Red Army. She is often called the only woman general of the Red Army. As with other Soviets, land reform

3458-549: The Fourth Red Army was acting like a "warlord-bandit" force, pillaging the countryside and rejecting proper discipline. Zhang and Chen then purged the army of hundreds of alleged traitors, including Xu. Zhang's purges expanded during the second half of 1931. Thousands or tens of thousands of party members were arrested and accused of being part of the Reorganizationists, the Anti-Bolshevik League , or

3549-756: The Mujahideen by the Chinese. Chinese military advisors and army troops were also present with the Mujahideen during training. In 1981, the PLA conducted its largest military exercise in North China since the founding of the People's Republic. In the late 1980s, the central government had increasing expenditures and limited revenue. The central government encouraged its agencies and encouraged local governments to expand their services and pursue revenues. The PLA established businesses including hotels and restaurants. The PLA gained more autonomy and permission to engage in commercial activities in exchange for

3640-472: The Nationalist armies, it provided the same benefit for bandit gangs. The highlands of Eyuwan had been plagued by roaming bandits for centuries, leading local communities to develop strong self-defense organizations known as Red Spear Societies . There was considerable local variation between different Red Spear Societies; in western Henan they were hardly distinguishable from bandits themselves, whereas in

3731-717: The Ninth Five Year Plan (1996–2000) the PLA was reduced by a further 500,000. The PLA had also been expected to be reduced by another 200,000 by 2005. The PLA has focused on increasing mechanization and informatization to be able to fight a high-intensity war. Former CMC chairman Jiang in 1990 called on the military to "meet political standards, be militarily competent, have a good working style, adhere strictly to discipline, and provide vigorous logistic support" ( Chinese : 政治合格、军事过硬、作风优良、纪律严明、保障有力 ; pinyin : zhèngzhì hégé, jūnshì guòyìng, zuòfēng yōuliáng, jìlǜ yánmíng, bǎozhàng yǒulì ). The 1991 Gulf War provided

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3822-668: The Northern Expedition strong popular support, but antagonized conservatives within the KMT who were often landowners and capital owners themselves. In 1927, the right-wing Generalissimo of the Nationalist army , Chiang Kai-shek , ordered a purge of Communists in the areas under his control. Chiang eventually took over the KMT and extended the purge to all areas under Nationalist control. The CCP went underground and many fled to isolated rural areas where Nationalist influence

3913-568: The PAP, the reserves, and the militia . The armed forces are controlled by the CCP under the doctrine of " the Party must always control the gun ".( Chinese : 党指挥枪 ; pinyin : Dǎng zhǐhuī qiāng ) The PLA and the PAP have the largest delegation in the National People's Congress (NPC), which are elected by servicemember election committees of top-level military subdivisions, including

4004-399: The PLA has used nine different military strategies, which it calls "strategic guidelines". The most important came in 1956, 1980, and 1993. Politically, the PLA and the paramilitary People's Armed Police (PAP) have the largest delegation in the National People's Congress (NPC); the joint delegation currently has 281 deputies—over 9% of the total—all of whom are CCP members. The PLA is not

4095-822: The PLA operates a base in Tajikistan and a listening station in Cuba. The Espacio Lejano Station in Argentina is operated by a unit of a PLA. The PLAN has also undertaken rotational deployments of its warships at the Ream Naval Base in Cambodia. The People's Republic of China has sent the PLA to various hotspots as part of China's role as a prominent member of the United Nations. Such units usually include engineers and logistical units and members of

4186-399: The PLA under the name of the People's Volunteer Army intervened in the Korean War as United Nations forces under General Douglas MacArthur approached the Yalu River . Under the weight of this offensive, Chinese forces drove MacArthur's forces out of North Korea and captured Seoul , but were subsequently pushed back south of Pyongyang north of the 38th Parallel . The war also catalyzed

4277-417: The PLA's primary objectives, although the armed forces' political loyalty to the CCP has remained a leading concern. Beginning in the 1980s, the PLA tried to transform itself from a land-based power centered on a vast ground force to a smaller, more mobile, high-tech one capable of mounting operations beyond its borders. The motivation for this was that a massive land invasion by Russia was no longer seen as

4368-450: The PLA's theater commands and service branches. At the 14th National People's Congress ; the joint delegation has 281 deputies—over 9% of the total—all of whom are CCP members. The PLA is governed by the Central Military Commission (CMC); under the arrangement of " one institution with two names ", there exists a state CMC and a Party CMC, although both commissions have identical personnel, organization and function, and effectively work as

4459-409: The PLA, with the post generally held by the paramount leader of China; since 1989, the post has generally been held together with the CCP general secretary . Unlike in other countries, the Ministry of National Defense and its Minister do not have command authority, largely acting as diplomatic liaisons of the CMC, insulating the PLA from external influence. However, the Minister has always been

4550-423: The PLA. In 2004, paramount leader Hu Jintao stated the mission of the PLA as: China describes its military posture as active defense , defined in a 2015 state white paper as "We will not attack unless we are attacked, but we will surely counterattack if attacked." The CCP founded its military wing on 1 August 1927 during the Nanchang uprising , beginning the Chinese Civil War . Communist elements of

4641-569: The PLA. During the Sino-Soviet split , strained relations between China and the Soviet Union resulted in bloody border clashes and mutual backing of each other's adversaries. China and Afghanistan had neutral relations with each other during the King's rule. When the pro-Soviet Afghan Communists seized power in Afghanistan in 1978, relations between China and the Afghan communists quickly turned hostile. The Afghan pro-Soviet communists supported China's enemies in Vietnam and blamed China for supporting Afghan anticommunist militants. China responded to

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4732-424: The PLAAF has designed its very own Chengdu J-10 fighter aircraft and a new stealth fighter, the Chengdu J-20 . The PLA launched the new Jin class nuclear submarines on 3 December 2004 capable of launching nuclear warheads that could strike targets across the Pacific Ocean and have three aircraft carriers, with the latest, the Fujian, launched in 2022. From 2014 to 2015, the PLA deployed 524 medical staff on

4823-425: The Red Army were allowed to rejoin and in some instances promoted. The overall impact and scale of the purges are disputed. Reasonable estimates of the number arrested and killed range from the low thousands to 10,000. Historian William Rowe argues that this "meant... the near final extinction of the Party's base of indigenous supporters" in Eyuwan, but most other historians disagree. Benton points out that almost all of

4914-400: The Third Party. In some counties, Zhang even set up secret police. Zhang's main justification for the purge was that the local party was too strongly intertwined with local gentry and the traditional rural power structure. He argued that this had prevented the party from carrying out land reform properly, and land reform under Zhang went much further than it had in previous years. Zhang appointed

5005-406: The armed forces. This is particularly visible in maritime territorial disputes where the navy is heavily involved in the planning, coordination and execution of operations by the PAP's China Coast Guard . The PLA's primary mission is the defense of the CCP and its interests. It is the guarantor of the party's survival and rule, and the party prioritizes maintaining control and the loyalty of

5096-477: The beginning. The United Front campaigners that had arrived in the region in advance of the Northern Expedition made women's liberation a core part of their campaign. Female Communists helped organize labor strikes and founded women's associations that challenged the patriarchal family structure and the oppression against women. One of the most potent symbols of the women's revolution was bobbed hair, which contrasted strongly with traditional ponytails and buns. However,

5187-467: The big anniversary it mounted its biggest parade yet and the first outside of Beijing, held in the Zhurihe Training Base in the Northern Theater Command (within the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region). In December 2023, Reuters reported a military leadership purge after high-ranking generals were ousted from the National People's Congress . Prior to 2017, over sixty generals were investigated and sacked. In addition to its Support Base in Djibouti ,

5278-611: The campaign began to target rich peasants and landholding institutions as well. The land reform process involved mass meetings, population censuses, land surveys, and campaigns against particularly unpopular gentry. Old deeds were destroyed and new ones created. Not all villages distributed land the same way; variations such as giving more land to families of Red Army soldiers were common. The Eyuwan Soviet's reforms faced significant resistance from traditional rural power structures. Attempts to enforce women's right to divorce faced strong opposition from peasants' organizations. Many gentry joined

5369-417: The cities. This in turn had benefits and drawbacks. Ties of solidarity between party members in Eyuwan were high, but they lacked an education in party principles or doctrine and the leaders often acted autocratically. The first "peasants' government" in the Eyuwan region was founded in Huang'an County in November 1927. There, Xu Haidong also founded the Seventh Red Army with a handful of recruits. However,

5460-425: The distrust between Zhang and Mao, Benton argues it was solely due to poor communications. Drought, food shortages, and a major epidemic weakened the Soviet going into 1932. From July to September 1932, Chiang Kai-shek ordered 300,000 troops of the National Revolutionary Army to surround and suppress the Eyuwan Soviet in the Fourth Encirclement Campaign . The Communists positioned the Twenty-fifth Red Army to defend

5551-447: The east they were fiercely loyal to the local gentry. But in both cases, they were initially hostile to the Communists. Other difficulties included the fact that the Communists were operating north of the Yangtze river , which cut them off from the majority of Communist bases and strongholds to the south. They had to recruit most of their party members locally, unlike the Jiangxi-Fujian Soviet that received numerous Communist refugees from

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5642-458: The east while the main force of the Fourth Red Army was located to the west. Although it was able to inflict about the same amount of casualties on the nationalist forces as it suffered itself, this loss rate was unsustainable against a superior force. Xia Douyin led a scorched earth campaign, killing all men found in the Soviet areas, burning all buildings, and seizing or destroying all crops. Historians such as Marc Opper and Chen Yao-huang argue that

5733-510: The four traditional military departments with a number of new bodies. China replaced its system of seven military regions with newly established Theater Commands: Northern , Southern , Western , Eastern , and Central . In the prior system, operations were segmented by military branch and region. In contrast, each Theater Command is intended to function as a unified entity with joint operations across different military branches. The PLA on 1 August 2017 marked its 90th anniversary. Before

5824-410: The implementation of party committee decisions, instilling and maintaining party discipline, providing political education, and working with other components of the political work system. Xu Jishen Xu Jishen ( Chinese : 许继慎 ) (March 10, 1901－November 1931) was a member of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army . He was born in Lu'an , Anhui Province. In 1919, he participated in

5915-417: The leaders of the Fourth Red Army. Xu Jishen and the other commanders wanted to seize the breadbasket counties in eastern Hubei to fix Eyuwan's chronic food shortages. Zhang compared the plan to Li Lisan's "adventurism", and when they disobeyed his orders and took the land anyways, he got permission from the Central Committee to make Chen Changhao political commissar of the Fourth Red Army. Zhang and Chen accused

6006-410: The left-wing units of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT) when they broke away in 1927 in an uprising against the nationalist government as the Chinese Red Army , before being reintegrated into the NRA as units of New Fourth Army and Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War . The two NRA communist units were reconstituted as the PLA in 1947. Since 1949,

6097-401: The local institutions set up to implement land reform and deliberately slowed down the process. When rich peasants as well as landlords began to have their land targeted for redistribution, middle peasants worried they would be next. The public campaigns and struggle sessions that targeted reactionaries and local power-holders caused major strife in close-knit peasant communities. At its height,

6188-410: The local peasantry to slow construction and bypass checkpoints. Liang was replaced with Wei Lihuang . Wei had significantly more troops, and also made use of concentration camps to deprive the Communists of peasant support. Despite occasional victories, the Communists were in the main defeated by this strategy. Most of the remaining guerrillas abandoned open warfare and began to operate undercover amongst

6279-413: The mid-1920s, the CCP and the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalists) formed an alliance known as the First United Front . They launched a Northern Expedition in 1926 that would eventually re-unify the Republic of China and defeat the Beiyang Clique . One of the tactics the United Front used during the offensive was the creation of militant labor unions and peasant associations. These mass organizations gave

6370-427: The military in an era of peace. The PLA reoriented itself to modernization, improving its fighting ability, and becoming a world-class force. Deng Xiaoping stressed that the PLA needed to focus more on quality rather than on quantity. The decision of the Chinese government in 1985 to reduce the size of the military by one million was completed by 1987. Staffing in military leadership was cut by about 50 percent. During

6461-447: The navy and air force. The PLA is also actively preparing for space warfare and cyber-warfare . In 2002, the PLA began holding military exercises with militaries from other countries. From 2018 to 2023, more than half of these exercises have focused on military training other than war, generally antipiracy or antiterrorism exercises involving combatting non-state actors. In 2009, the PLA held its first military exercise in Africa,

6552-459: The ousting of Li Lisan. Li's influence waned in the second half of 1930 after the plan to attack cities ended in costly failure. The first high-level party member appointed to lead Eyuwan, Zeng Zhongsheng  [ zh ] , arrived in September. He attempted to take a moderate position between Li and Li's critics. During his term the soviet fended off two Nationalist suppression campaigns and

6643-532: The paramilitary People's Armed Police and have been deployed as part of peacekeeping operations in Lebanon , the Republic of the Congo , Sudan , Ivory Coast , Haiti , and more recently, Mali and South Sudan . As of at least early 2024, China has not fought a war since 1979 and has only fought relatively minor conflicts since. The PLA is a component of the armed forces of China, which also includes

6734-484: The peasants. Until the Second United Front began in 1937, the Communists in Eyuwan were on the edge of collapse. Despite its convoluted history, the Fourth Red Army became one of the most important sources of officers for later CCP military units. It was one of the main sources of the soldiers who served in the New Fourth Army . Even by the 1950s, "70 percent of cadres at the divisional level and above in

6825-517: The purged cadres were replaced with other local supporters since there were very few non-native Communists in the region. Tony Saich argues that the Red Army's continued success showed that the purges had not affected the army's fighting capacity. In early 1932, the Fourth Red Army had helped defeat the Third Encirclement Campaign and reached 30,000 soldiers. Women played a major part in the revolutionary movement in Eyuwan from

6916-488: The radical women's movement was strongly opposed by more conservative factions of society. Warlords ruthlessly suppressed and killed radical women when they retook control of an area, and even some peasants' associations grew hostile to the women's associations over issues like divorce. The movement was crippled after the KMT's right-wing took control; prominent female revolutionaries were executed and women's associations were reorganized to bring them under KMT control. Xia Douyin

7007-400: The railroad forces, the communications forces, and the strategic forces, as well as other separate forces (like engineering and construction, logistics and medical services), were established later on. In this early period, the People's Liberation Army overwhelmingly consisted of peasants. Its treatment of soldiers and officers was egalitarian and formal ranks were not adopted until 1955. As

7098-637: The rank of major. After the Canton Coup , he was made a battalion commander under Ye Ting . During his participation in the Northern Expedition , he was wounded due to the actions of Xia Douyin . After the breakdown of the alliance between the communists and the Kuomintang , Xu left the National Revolutionary Army . In March 1930, he went to the Eyuwan Soviet in the border region of Hubei , Henan and Anhui Provinces, where he

7189-599: The rapid modernization of the PLAAF. In 1962, the PLA ground force also fought India in the Sino-Indian War . In a series of border clashes in 1967 with Indian troops, the PLA suffered heavy numerical and tactical losses. Before the Cultural Revolution , military region commanders tended to remain in their posts for long periods. The longest-serving military region commanders were Xu Shiyou in

7280-530: The rebellion of a local officer in Macheng. In the summer of 1929, the consolidated their first permanent territory in Macheng near the mountain pass of Songziguan (松子关). From here, they were able to start land redistribution. The Nationalists under General Xia Douyin retook some of this territory from the Communists and massacred thousands of civilians, but were ultimately unable to stop the Communists' expansion. In mid-1929, Li Lisan became de facto leader of

7371-547: The same time consolidating by recruiting KMT troops and paramilitary forces behind Japanese lines into their forces. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the CCP continued to use the National Revolutionary Army unit structures until the decision was made in February 1947 to merge the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army, renaming the new million-strong force the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The reorganization

7462-635: The successes and failures of the United States Armed Forces during the Kosovo War , the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan , the 2003 invasion of Iraq , and the Iraqi insurgency . All these lessons inspired China to transform the PLA from a military based on quantity to one based on quality. Chairman Jiang Zemin officially made a " revolution in military affairs " (RMA) part of the official national military strategy in 1993 to modernize

7553-423: Was US$ 296 billion in 2023, accounting for 12 percent of the world's defence expenditures . It is also one of the fastest modernizing militaries in the world, and has been termed as a potential military superpower, with significant regional defence and rising global power projection capabilities. In addition to wartime arrangements, the PLA is also involved in the peacetime operations of other components of

7644-531: Was a barrier to modernization and professionalization, and eroded party control. The 2010s anti-corruption campaigns and military reforms under Xi Jinping from the early-2010s were in part executed to address these problems. Following the PLA's suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre , ideological correctness was temporarily revived as the dominant theme in Chinese military affairs. Reform and modernization have today resumed their position as

7735-463: Was a dominant foreign policy institution in the country. During the 1950s, the PLA with Soviet assistance began to transform itself from a peasant army into a modern one. Since 1949, China has used nine different military strategies, which the PLA calls "strategic guidelines". The most important came in 1956, 1980, and 1993. Part of this process was the reorganization that created thirteen military regions in 1955. In November 1950, some units of

7826-754: Was completed by late 1948. The PLA eventually won the Chinese Civil War, establishing the People's Republic of China in 1949. It then underwent a drastic reorganization, with the establishment of the Air Force leadership structure in November 1949, followed by the Navy leadership structure the following April. In 1950, the leadership structures of the artillery, armored troops, air defence troops, public security forces, and worker–soldier militias were also established. The chemical warfare defence forces,

7917-587: Was made commander of the First Red Army . Under his command, the Red Army inflicted 7,000 casualties on the Kuomintang forces. In December 1930, the Kuomintang launched their first offensive on the area. Xu's forces defeated 3 Kuomintang regiments totalling 3,000 troops. In January 1931, Xu's command was downgraded to divisional with the merging of the Red 1st Army into the Red 4th Army. Xu was able to defeat

8008-479: Was particularly notorious for the mutilating the corpses of female revolutionaries he had killed. When the Communists began to take back control of the Eyuwan region, many women's rights were restored. A female resident of Anhui later recalled that "women unbound their feet, cut their hair short, studied, and took part in public life." Many women joined the Red Army. They worked as propagandists, nurses, engineers, or clothing makers, sometimes in all-women battalions. When

8099-527: Was the cornerstone of the Communists' appeal to the peasantry. Even before they began to take and hold territory, Communist guerrillas encouraged peasants to protest against taxes, rent, and debt payments. Although in the early days of the guerrilla movement they lacked the means to redistribute land, they did enforce a policy where the person who lived on and worked the land would keep the crop. This helped tenants but did nothing for hired laborers. Starting in May 1929,

8190-653: Was the last of the Four Modernizations announced by Zhou Enlai and supported by Deng Xiaoping . In keeping with Deng's mandate to reform, the PLA has demobilized millions of men and women since 1978 and has introduced modern methods in such areas as recruitment and manpower, strategy , and education and training . In 1979, the PLA fought Vietnam over a border skirmish in the Sino-Vietnamese War where both sides claimed victory. However, western analysts agree that Vietnam handily outperformed

8281-500: Was weakest. One popular destination for fleeing Communists was the Dabie Mountains , a border region between Hubei , Henan , and Anhui provinces (the " E yu wan " region). Many Communists were in fact natives of this region and had been sent by their parents to study in the cities. By returning to their native region, they could count on family ties as a recruitment tool. But while the rugged terrain gave them shelter from

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