Presenting the most glaring points about the PLA from the report ‘China’s Incomplete Military Transformation’.

Human capital weaknesses stem directly from the personal characteristics of the individuals who make up the PLA.

Some of these weaknesses arise from the pool of potential recruits from which the PLA draws on for its annual conscription efforts, who are often under-educated and/or do not meet physical or even mental health standards.

PLA is the armed wing of the CCP and the guarantor of the ruling status, political prerogatives, and perquisites of the CCP. This may affect morale as soldiers and officers fight to preserve a system that benefits the 80 mn CCP members rather than the 1.3 bn Chinese people.

PLA has a tendency to avoid training sufficiently or under challenging conditions. Often, exercises are seen as failures if it does not win, so exercises are not seen as a chance to identify problems that can be remedied before actual wartime operations commence.

319 individuals in the Shenyang Military Region were disciplined for misbehavior during military exercises, mostly related to cheating to reduce the difficulty of carrying out field exercises or to ensure that successful results.

To meet recruiting goals, the PLA has lowered the minimum height requirement for recruits, raised the maximum weight limit, reduced eyesight standards, and even removed mental illnesses including schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder, as barriers to recruitment.

Problems such as low morale, and lack of professionalism, including difficulties accepting military discipline and maintaining operational security arise from issues in Chinese society such as the ‘little emperor’ phenomenon of spoiled children due to the one-child policy.

The one-child policy produces recruits who are not tough enough to withstand military discipline. Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu of PLA National Defense University has related that ‘at least 70% of PLA soldiers were from one-child families and 80% among combat troops.’

To address the emotional and psychological needs of soldiers the PLA implemented a special training program for ‘spoiled boys and girls’ to strengthen their fighting capability. A soldier said “recruits usually need 2 years to adjust to life within a unit...”

”We would rather have talent and wait for equipment than have equipment and wait for talent,” (Zhang Yang, 2009).

”We must clearly acknowledge that the thinking of some officers and men with regards to supporting war is still not firmly established and that problems still exist in training, exercises, and testing in an improper, insubstantial, or lax manner.” (Zhang Jianshe, 2013).

One area that a number of Chinese sources discuss is perceived shortfalls in the quality of missile force personnel. Some emphasize shortcomings in the development of PLASAF NCOs (Xu Yeqing, Yu Wenwu, and Zeng Yuan, 2011) and lack of sufficiently high levels of professionalism.

The acting deputy chief of staff for the Nanjing Military Region Air Force, Ni Wenxin, recognises this problem due to ‘unrealistic, lax, and easy training.’ (Ni Wenxin, 2013). Ni even has a name for this malady — peace disease.

Lack of realistic training is a serious problem. This may have played a role in an incident that Pentagon spoke of as a ‘dangerous intercept’ of a P-8 Poseidon aircraft in August 2014 by a PLA aircraft in which the pilot ‘made several close passes’ and came ‘within 30 feet.’

The peace disease also affects air safety. An Air Force News article implored commanders to ‘reduce the number of accidents’ that were occurring due to ‘training not being organised correctly...standards not adhered to...training that emphasized the wrong subjects.’

Finally, the ability of instructor pilots is recognized as being poor. In early 2014, PLAAF Political Commissar Tian Xiusi called out the ‘chief instructor contingent’ for being the ‘weakest point’ in the basic fight training of the PLA.

I’ll come up with more such threads that present a clearer picture of the Chinese armed forces.

India’s very strength is hard training and actual experience that China can never match.

While China posts pictures of glorified drills, our soldiers kill actual terrorists each day.