II. Military Personnel Reduced
by One Million
In May, 1985, China solemnly declared that the People's Liberation Army(PLA) would reduce military personnel by one million. This was the mostrepresentative of China's many unilateral moves to disarmament, givingproof of the nation's determination to actively promote arms control anddisarmament. This action stood in sharp contrast to the arms race pursuedby the two major military blocs existing in the world at that time.
China's vast land and large population have justified the necessityof maintaining a standing army of a certain size in order to maintain nationalsecurity. The PLA is a people's army led by the Communist Party of China.Its duty is to consolidate national defence, resist aggression, curb subversionand efforts to split the nation, defend the motherland, safeguard the people'speaceful labour, join in building the country and strive to serve the people.
While meeting the precondition of ensuring the interests of the nationalsecurity, China has always kept its military personnel at a minimum level.For a long period following the founding of the People's Republic, Chinawas subject to isolation, blockade, subversion and sabotage by the imperialistsand hegemonists, and, as a result, the PLA was often on a combatready alert.Even when faced with such circumstances, China made great efforts towardsarms control and twice, in 1955 and 1958, effected large-scale disarmament.The 1980s saw marked improvement in China's security environment. In orderto
As a prelude to this extensive unilateral disarmament, the Chinese armedforces were reduced, reorganized and restructured between 1982 and 1984.In May, 1985, China decided to reduce its military personnel by one million.Action on this scale was rare in the sphere of contemporary internationalarms control and disarmament.
--Reducing personnel. By 1987, the 4.238-million-strong PLA had beenreduced to 3.235 million. Subsequently, still further reductions were made.By 1990, the PLA manpower was reduced to 3.199 million, overshooting thedeclared target of one million men. The 1.039 million demobilized soldiersrepresented 24.5 percent of the army's original strength.
--Dismantling and merging portions of the military organization. Reapportionmentand merger reduced the number of military area commands from eleven toseven. More than 5,900 units above the regimental level were dispersedthrough dismantling, merging, demoting or reforming.
--Adoption of a civil position system. Most of the officers on activeduty working in scientific research, engineering, education, literatureand arts and public health were reclassified as working in civil positionswithin the army.
--Reductions in weaponry. Throughout the armed forces 10,000 artillerypieces of various kinds were removed from service, along with over 1,100tanks, approximately 2,500 airplanes, and over 610 naval vessels.
--Opening certain military facilities to the public. Nationwide, 101military airports and 29 military harbours have been opened to the public,and some military facilities have been put to civilian use.
China's unilateral, massive reduction of its armed forces took placeat a time when the cold war was still on and the protracted disarmamenttalks between the U.S. and the Soviet Union were still without outcome.This action was not only conducive to slowing the arms race between thetwo major blocs, the East and West, and to the relaxation of internationaltension at the time, but also beneficial to the gradual creation of anatmosphere of mutual trust among the world's nations, and the improvementof the environment for arms control and disarmament and was thus a majorcontribution towards promoting the process of the international arms controland disarmament.
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