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PLAN Enlisted Forces - NCO Corps

NCO Selection, Retention, and Evaluation Process

At the conclusion of their second year of service, conscripts have the option of applying to extend their stay in the PLA by becoming NCOs or officers. Conscripts not selected as an NCO or for officer training conclude their conscription period at the end of October and are demobilized. The possible career paths available to conscripts are illustrated in the figure below.

The majority of conscripts who remain on active duty do so by becoming NCOs. Conscripts who choose to become NCOs can either be selected on the basis of merit or pass an exam for entrance into an NCO program of study at a PLA academy or school. In both situations, however, the process is highly competitive and the results are by no means guaranteed. Also, media reports indicate that corruption is widespread in the selection process. One of the key changes instituted by the revised "Military Service Law" was the formal creation of a professional NCO corps with a 30-year career path, as shown below.At the end of each period, NCOs may extend their stay in the PLA by being promoted to a higher rank; otherwise, they are demobilized. An NCO's rank is based on his service period, as are his salary, promotion, and date of demobilization.

NCO Professional Military Education

NCOs in the PLAN have a number of options for receiving professional military education (PME). The chart below shows these options, which range from receiving no training at all, to technical training at a training organization, continuing education usually in the form of correspondence or distance-learning courses done from within the unit, to training at a special NCO school or NCO program at an officer academy.

Although the number of noncommissioned officers who attend an NCO school or officer academy NCO program is presently small, the number attending academies and schools has doubled since the 1999 reforms to the NCO system. For example, between 2000 and 2003, more than 20,000 PLA NCOs received training at either an NCO school or officer academy NCO program. This is a direct result of the PLA's increased emphasis on the importance of NCO training and education. According to guidance issued in 2005 by the GSD Military Affairs Department, all NCOs who hope to be selected to a higher grade must undergo education at a PLA academy or school or receive training at a training organization.

The guidance is as follows: Junior NCOs (grades 1-2), intermediate NCOs (grades 3-4), and all technical and command NCOs must have at least a high schoollevel education. Senior NCOs (grades 5-6) must have at least a senior technical-level education, as well as at least 10 years of experience in their specialty.

Learning Multiple Specialties

The PLAN is now focusing on its personnel learning more than one skill to fill in for others who take vacation or are killed or injured during combat. Specifically, the PLAN has begun developing NCOs who master one technical specialty but are competent in several others. For example, conscripts must master one technical specialty, while grade-4 NCOs must master two specialties and be competent in two others.

Training by Skill Levels

Under the PLAN's old Outline of Military Training and Evaluation (OMTE), all enlisted personnel on board a ship received the same type of training, regardless of their skill level. Under the new OMTE, the PLAN is providing different types of training for each grade and skill level.

Refresher Training

As part of its "Talent Cultivation Project," the PLAN has also begun to mandate short-term refresher training for NCOs prior to promotion to the next service period. NCOs receive instruction on new events and concepts, as well as the latest developments in armament and technology.

College-Level Education

NCOs in the PLAN have the option of getting a college-level education at the PLAN NCO School located in Bengbu, Anhui Province, or one of the following six PLAN officer academies that offer NCO programs:

• Dalian Vessel Academy
• Naval Engineering University
• Service Arms Command Academy
• Submarine Academy
• Logistics Academy
• Aviation Engineering Academy

Noncommissioned officers who attend an NCO program at an officer academy are assigned to their own student units and are not mixed with officer cadets. The duration of study is between two to three years, after which they receive either a secondary or senior technical degree. Until the early 2000s, the highest degree NCOs could receive was a two-year secondary technical degree, which in China is viewed as a high school equivalency degree. The three year senior technical degree, which is equivalent to a US associate's or vocational degree, is a relatively new phenomenon for PLA NCOs. The PLAN's first class of NCO senior technical graduates completed their program at the PLAN NCO School in July 2003.

PLAN NCO School

The PLAN NCO School is a technical school that trains NCOs for two or three years to work in maritime and ground-based services. Originally founded in 1977, the school has 24 academic specialties divided into nine categories, including chemical defense, communications, navigation, logistics, machinery, mechanical and electrical, and weapons. The school also publishes the journal NCO Training. The school began its first short-term training classes in March 2005, which consisted of 17 technical specialties. The new courses last from one to three months. These training opportunities are the outgrowth of a PLA plan to increase the professional skills of its NCOs. According to PRC media reports, some units appear to be having trouble finding suitable candidates to hold down certain billets due to a lack of specialties in the current NCO education system.The PLA as a whole, as well as the PLAN, has been trying to address complaints from operational units that the NCO schools focus on too much theory and not enough practical application.

Duties and Responsibilities

As the overall proportion of NCOs in the enlisted force has surged to about 50%, and over 60% in some technical units, the responsibilities of noncommissioned officers have also increased, primarily at the expense of conscripts and junior officers. At present, NCOs hold down many key technical billets in all types of units. Other recent examples of the expansion of the scope of NCO duties and responsibilities include:

• Inheriting billets once held exclusively by officers, such as mess officers
• Handling much of the training for both conscripts and junior NCOs
• Serving as the commanding officer for some smaller vessels in the PLAN
• Serving as acting platoon leaders.

As the NCO force grows and the officer corps gets smaller, the PLAN has begun training noncommissioned officers at its NCO School and NCO programs in officer academies to take over several different types of officer billets. These billets include electronic countermeasures, land-based radar, sonar technology, and signals communication.

NCO Party Membership

Although only a small percentage of conscripts are actively recruited for Party membership, the proportion of NCOs who are Party members has increased greatly in recent years. With the large increase in NCO Party members, PRC media reports suggest that the role of Party organizations in grassroots units (i.e., battalion level and below) has been strengthened and that a number of NCO Party members are also members of company-level Party branches.

According to the PLA Daily, following the 16th Party Congress in October 2002, the PLA tasked each company-level Party branch to incorporate one to two NCO Party members. Usually these are more experienced NCOs who are squad leaders and serve as the head of a Party small group , which is the smallest organization that makes up a Party branch. For example, one PLAN vessel unit, where NCOs consisted of 70% of all Party members, incorporated many of these NCO Party members into the Party branch to adapt to this new reality. The PLAN's goals are to have NCO actively participate in work decisions and to gain managerial experience. That said, NCO involvement in the Party decision-making process is limited to the company level, as only the Party branch secretaries and deputies, which are positions staffed by officers, can participate in Party committees above the company level.

Officer Selection

Although the direct commissioning of members of the enlisted force to the officer corps was prevalent during the Red Army days and still existed after the PLA was formed in the mid-1940s, the practice was abolished shortly after the Cultural Revolution. Since 1980, the PLA has gradually changed its system of directly commissioning enlisted members as officers, so that, during peacetime, all conscripts selected to become officers are now required to undergo three to four years of training in a PLA academy. This is true for NCOs as well, although a handful of more experienced, older NCOs may be selected to undergo only a few months of short-term training before being commissioned. Upon graduating from a military academy, the new officers incur a 7- to 8- year commitment to the PLA.

In 2003, the four General Departments issued new age requirements for enlisted personnel applying for officer training. Members of the enlisted force who were conscripted after graduating from high school cannot be more than 23 years old when they applied. The age requirement was further reduced since 2003 to 22 years old. This implies that the only members of the enlisted force permitted to apply to an officer academy are conscripts and grade-1 NCOs who have not exceeded the age limit. All conscripts and NCOs who apply to officer undergraduate and senior technical academic specialties offered at military academies take the All-Army Uniform Academic Examination for admission to military schools. The exam is held throughout the PLA once a year, usually in early June. The examination results and academy enrollment decisions are usually posted in mid-July, and classes begin in the fall.

In addition to taking the Uniform Academic Examination, many enlisted applicants for military academies and schools must take an exam covering specific military training subjects, depending on the academic specialty they elect to study. This test is usually given several months ahead of the Uniform Academic Examination. The duration of the exam is about two hours, and the scores on these specialty exams are combined with the applicant's score on the Uniform Academic Examination for an overall score. According to the All-Army Recruitment Office, nearly 30,000 enlisted personnel nationwide took the exam in 2005, with more than 5,000 individuals gaining admission to military academies as officers, an overall national ratio of 1 to 6.

Of note, the total number of enlisted personnel in the PLAN recruited into officer academies during the 2003 recruitment cycle plunged by 58% from the previous year. Statistics from the PLAN Political Department's Cadre Department show that about 650 enlisted sailors were admitted to naval academies in 2003 compared to more than 1,500 in 2002. An examination of admissions statistics from 2005 reveals a further reduction, with the number of enlisted sailors admitted dropping to about 450. Although the high number of applicants who take the examination each year suggests there remains great interest in extending one's active- duty service as an officer, it has become increasingly difficult for enlisted personnel to gain admission to military academies in recent years for the following three reasons:

• First, the PLA has been reducing its overall size, with a major focus on shrinking the officer corps.
• Second, the PLA began recruiting civilian college graduates as officers in the early 1990s and instituted a National Defense Scholarship Program in civilian universities in the early 2000s. This program has further reduced the number of officer slots available to enlisted personnel.
• Third, the PLA has been trying to expand the size of its NCO corps with personnel who previously would have been qualified to become officers.

Retirement and Demobilization

With the reduction of the mandatory conscription period to two years, half of the entire conscription force now turns over each November. Moreover, NCOs are also demobilized at this time, provided they have completed a service period and are not selected for promotion to the next higher grade. When a conscript or NCO is demobilized from the PLA, he receives a retirement subsidy, as well as a medical subsidy if he suffers from a chronic illness. Once the soldier is formally demobilized and returns to civilian life, all expenses related to his demobilization and job placement are paid by the local government where he resides.

The demobilization process for NCOs is sometimes disruptive for unit training. In some cases, NCOs receive about a month of training prior to demobilization to prepare them for a civilian job. Typical types of training include computers, driving, cooking, photography, and vehicle repair. The changeover of personnel can sometimes cause difficulties for units to manage, particularly when it leaves a gap in expertise. For example, the replacements for NCOs who serve as squad leaders are sometimes not identified until the NCOs are demobilized. The units must then spend time training the new NCO as a squad leader. In addition, because the PLAN takes the demobilization date seriously, vessels on patrol have returned to port just to disembark NCOs who are being demobilized the following day. The vessels are then left shorthanded until replacements can be trained.

After demobilization, conscripts and NCOs can be placed in enlisted reserve service if they are evaluated as suitable. These forces are occasionally brought in to active-duty units for training. In 2002, the PLAN decided to conduct its first reservist mobilization training to keep reserve personnel updated with the more technically sophisticated equipment currently in service. For example, one destroyer unit called up 80 reservists who had previously served in the unit as grade-2 or higher NCOs. The reservists trained together for several days and then conducted at-sea training for about a week.