• Military

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space
• Public Eye

PLA Reserve Forces

The PLA's reserve force, established in 1983, is a force with its own preset organizational structure, with reserve personnel as the base and active personnel as the backbone. The reserve force operates a unified organizational system. The divisions, brigades and regiments of the reserve force are conferred designations and military banners.

The 1984 Military Service Law stipulated the combination of the militia and the reserve service system. Military training for senior middle-school and college and university students commenced in 1984 as China sought to provide additional qualified reserveservice officers. The reserve force consisted primarily of the militia and was organized into reserve-service divisions and regiments.

In 1987 China began to make reference to the National Defense Reserve Force, which apparently consisted of reserve soldiers (including all militia, demobilized soldiers, and specialized technical personnel registered for reserve service) and reserve officers (including demobilized officers and soldiers assigned to reserve officer service, college and university graduates, and civilian cadres and specialized technicians.

The reserve force implements orders and regulations of the PLA, and is incorporated into the PLA's order of battle. In peacetime, it is led by the provincial military districts or garrison commands, and in wartime, after mobilization, it is commanded by the designated active unit or carries out combat missions independently.

It receives military training in peacetime in accordance with the relevant regulations, and, if necessary, helps to maintain social order in accordance with the law. In wartime, it may be called into active service in pursuance of a state mobilization order.

The Militia

The militia is an armed mass organization not released from production. It is a reserve force of the PLA and the basis for the prosecution of a people’s war under modern conditions. The General Staff Headquarters administers the building of the militia under the leadership of the State Council and the CMC. Under the command of military organs, the militia in wartime helps the standing army in its military operations, conducts independent operations, and provides combat support and manpower replenishment for the standing army. In peacetime, it undertakes the tasks of performing combat readiness support, taking part in emergency rescue and disaster relief efforts, and maintaining social order.

In accordance with provisions in the Military Service Law of the PRC, male citizens from 18 to 35 years of age who are fit for military service, excluding those enlisted for active service, shall be regimented into militia units to perform reserve service. The militia has two categories: the primary and the ordinary. A selected group of militiamen under the age of 28, including soldiers discharged from active service and other persons who have received or are selected for military training, are regimented into the primary militia; other male citizens belonging to the age group of 18 to 35, who are qualified for reserve service are regimented into the ordinary militia. The primary militia may recruit female citizens when necessary.

Rural towns and townships, administrative villages, urban sub-districts, and enterprises and institutions of a certain scale are the basic units in which the militia is organized. Primary militiamen are separately organized for concentrated military training in militia military training bases of administrative areas at the county level. Currently, there are emergency detachments, and such specialized technical detachments as anti-aircraft artillery, anti-aircraft machineguns, portable air defense missiles, ground artillery, communications, chemical defense, engineering and reconnaissance detachments.

To ensure that militiamen are always ready to respond to the call in case of a contingency, the Chinese government has formulated a militia combat readiness system, whereby combat readiness education is carried out regularly among the militia with the purpose of enhancing their national defense awareness, and exercises are conducted in accordance with combat readiness plans to enhance the militia’s operational capabilities.

The role of the militia and the degree of party and PLA control over it have varied over the years. During the 1940s the militia served primarily as a PLA support force. After 1949 the party consolidated control over the country and gradually used the militia to maintain order and help the PLA with defense of the borders and coast. In the mid-1950s Minister of National Defense Peng Dehuai attempted to build a reserve system incorporating the militia. Peng's efforts were thwarted when the party expanded the militia, assigning it duties as a production force and internal security force during the Great Leap Forward. Lin Biao reduced the size of the militia and reemphasized military training in the early 1960s.

In the 1960s, the Chinese peasantry was organized through the commune system into a vast people's militia. In all, about a quarter of the population was involved. The militia was given simple training, often with wooden rifles, by militia departments which were staffed by PLA officers. An important part of the training process was ideological work: learning from the various model soldiers which were held up for emulation,

The militia was fragmented during the early years of the Cultural Revolution, but in the 1970s it was rebuilt and redirected to support the PLA. The Gang of Four attempted to build up the urban militia as an alternative to the PLA, but the urban militia failed to support the Gang of Four in 1976, when Hua Guofeng and moderate military leaders deposed them. The militia's logistical support of the PLA was essential during the Sino-Vietnamese border war of 1979. In the 1980s Chinese leaders undertook to improve the militia's military capabilities by reducing its size and its economic tasks.

By the late 1980s the militia was controlled by the PLA at the military district level and by people's armed forces departments, which devolved to civilian control at the county and city levels as part of the reduction in force. The militia was a smaller force than previously, consisting of 4.3 million basic or primary -- armed -- militia, and the 6-million-strong general or ordinary militia. The basic militia was comprised of men and women aged eighteen to twenty-eight who had served or were expected to serve in the PLA and who received thirty to forty days of military training per year. The basic militia included naval militia, which operated armed fishing trawlers and coastal defense units, as well as specialized detachments, such as air defense, artillery, communications, antichemical, reconnaissance, and engineering units, which served the PLA. The ordinary militia included men aged eighteen to thirty-five who met the criteria for military service; they received some basic military training but generally were unarmed. The ordinary militia had some air defense duties and included the urban militia. Efforts were made to streamline militia organization and upgrade militia weaponry. By 1986 militia training bases had been established in over half the counties and cities in the nation.

The militia's principal tasks in the 1980s were to assist in production, to undergo military training, and to defend China's frontiers in peacetime. In wartime, the militia would supply reserves for mobilization, provide logistical support to the PLA, and conduct guerrilla operations behind enemy lines.