The Path of Fewer But Better Troops with Chinese Characteristics

The Chinese army attaches great importance to quality construction and has embarked on a road of comprehensive and efficient improvement of combat effectiveness. This is a basic problem to be solved for army building in the new period under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping. It is also the fundamental basis for China's national defense and army building and the basic guiding ideology for the future development of our army. The generation and development of combat effectiveness of the army covers both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Under the modern conditions, an inevitable result of the wide application of high technology in the military field is the profound change in the construction relationship between the two basic elements: people and weapons and equipment that constitute the combat effectiveness. After presiding over the work of the Central Military Commission, Deng Xiaoping took "relieving swelling" as a breakthrough and began to advance the road of fewer but better troops with Chinese characteristics. Through three rounds of streamlining and reorganizations from 1975 to 1985, the total number of PLA troops decreased from 6.11 million at its peak to 3 million. Furthermore, under the judgments that “world war will not break out for a while” and “it is possible to strive for a longer period of peace”, it was proposed that “the army should follow and act under the overall situation of national construction”.

In 1985, the People's Liberation Army again disarmed by one million, marking that China's national defense and army building shifted to a construction track that was compatible with the theme of the era of peace and development, and China's army building begun a strategic shift towards modernization. “The road of fewer but better troops with Chinese characteristics” has profound connotations: Firstly, "fewer but better troops " means higher quality of the army.

The main requirements include: compact army with a proper number of personnel, streamlined organizations, and sophisticated weapons and equipment. Deng Xiaoping pointed out that our army used to “only emphasize quantity, not quality. But now it has changed. We emphasize quality and true combat effectiveness. Engaging with fewer but better and really useful". Secondly, the purpose of "fewer but better troops" is to comprehensively improve the combat effectiveness. Combat effectiveness is the energy released by all the material and spiritual factors that make up the army in the military struggles, and it is also an objective standard to measure the level of army building. Deng Xiaoping established standards for combat effectiveness and required to take improving combat effectiveness as the starting point and goal of military reform and construction, and as a standard for testing various tasks. Thirdly, the “Chinese characteristics” of the road of fewer but better troops lies in the reform. The reform in this period was advancing in the direction of fewer but better troops, synthesis and high efficiency.

Disarmament is not simply cutting down scale, but means a strategic restructuring. Synchronized with the disarmament was the establishment of new arms, and the training of troops was shifted to center on contract campaign and tactics training, greatly improve the quality of personnel, streamline and efficiently establish the structure, develop conventional weapons, and make breakthrough in cutting-edge defense technologies. In 1997, 2003 and 2015, the People's Liberation Army successively announced 500,000 , 200,000 and 300,000 troop cuts. After institutional establishment restructuring and reform, the formation structure of the army has been greatly optimized, the technical content increased, and the people's army has taken new steps in establishing a new type of combat force. Unswervingly taking the road of fewer but better troops with Chinese characteristics is a fruitful result of combining Marxist military doctrine with contemporary Chinese military practices, and is the correct path pioneered by Deng Xiaoping in line with China's national conditions and adapting to the development of the times. History has repeatedly proved that since the Reform and Opening-up, the reason why the people’s army can continuously promote its own development and make strides forward in the changes of the times is attributed to unswervingly adhering to the road of fewer but better troops with Chinese characteristics, which still has a long-term guiding role for the army building in the future.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the Party Central Committee and the Central Military Commission focused on building elite combat forces, optimizing the scale structure and force composition, and promoting the shift of our army from focusing on quantity-scale to focusing on quality-efficiency, adhering to the principle of streamlining and high efficiency, adjusting the proportion of military services, developing towards fullness, synthesis, versatility, and flexibility, promoting the military management revolution with efficiency as the core, and continuously improving the professionalism, refinement, and scientific management level of the army.