Chinese Dictator Xi wants the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) to maintain “full-time combat readiness”.
Breitbart reports today:
State news agency Xinhua described the orders as part of an effort to tighten Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control of the nation’s military and to prepare it for future conflicts:
Upholding the Party’s absolute leadership over the armed forces and focusing on combat capabilities, the regulations stipulated the guiding principles, leadership, responsibilities and structures of the committees in detail. At the same time, it sets requirements for its members.
The regulations will enhance the role of Party organizations in the armed forces and help with the Party’s goal of strengthening the military in the new era and building world-class armed forces.
The order comes as China makes a series of moves to improve its military capabilities amid several international spats with its neighbors over its territorial claims, which have prompted tense military encounters, including firefights. With particular respect to its border dispute with India, a string of defeats displayed China’s unpreparedness for armed conflict.
Last June, the PLA suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Indian military after the Chinese troops reportedly established a Himalayan encampment on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto Sino-Indian border. The deadly clash saw Indian troops clash with the PLA using clubs, sticks wrapped in barbed wire, and other crude weapons, eventually driving Chinese troops off of a cliff and reportedly inflicting twice the casualties on the PLA as they themselves sustained.
Use of firearms at the border had been banned by China and India, though the latter rescinded the order in the wake of the clash, which eventually prompted cross-border firefights that had not been seen in decades.
It’s unknown why Xi believes now is the time to increase his troops readiness in China.
