China's PLA Ground Force Modernizes Through Restructuring, Remains World's Largest

When Xi Jinping stood before the military parade in Tiananmen Square in September 2015, he announced a restructuring that would reshape China's armed forces for decades to come. Over the next three years, the People's Liberation Army dismissed 300,000 soldiers and officers—a massive reduction designed to strip away the bloat of a force that had grown accustomed to size over capability. The goal was deliberate: make the PLA leaner, smarter, and ready for modern warfare. Today, the ground forces comprise slightly less than half of the PLA's two million active-duty members, yet China's military remains the largest in the world by headcount.

The modernization Xi set in motion was never meant to be quick. The government framed it in terms of decades, not years. By 2035, the stated aim is to "basically complete national defense and military modernization." By 2049—the centennial of the People's Republic—China wants a "world-class military." The restructuring that began in 2015 was the foundation. In 2016, the PLA abolished its seven military regions and established five theater commands instead: Eastern, Southern, Western, Northern, and Central. This shift was meant to encourage joint operations across services, breaking down the silos that had defined the old structure. That same year, the PLA created the Strategic Support Force to handle the domains it knew would matter most in future conflict—cyber, electronic warfare, and space. In April 2024, this force was reorganized into the Information Support Force, a signal that the digital transformation was accelerating.

Dennis Blasko, a former U.S. defense attaché in Beijing and Hong Kong during the 1990s and now a leading expert on PLA affairs, has watched these changes unfold with precision. He explained that the joint headquarters operating under the Central Military Commission and across the five theaters have been functional for roughly a decade now. Despite serious gaps in senior leadership positions—many caused by Xi's aggressive anti-corruption campaign, which has led to widespread detentions—these headquarters have kept the force's operational tempo steady. The PLA has maintained routine operations in the East China Sea around Taiwan, across the South China Sea where it pressures rival claimants like the Philippines, along the Line of Actual Control with India, in the Gulf of Aden, and on multiple United Nations peacekeeping missions. None of this has involved actual combat, Blasko noted, but the joint headquarters are learning as they go, gaining experience in sustaining complex, genuinely joint operations.

The ground forces have shrunk for reasons beyond the 300,000 dismissals. Over the past decade, roughly seven brigades were transferred to the PLA Navy Marine Corps. That service now operates eleven brigades total: eight marine brigades, two special operations forces brigades, and one aviation brigade. These transfers reflect a strategic shift. With eight Type 071 amphibious ships, four Type 075s, and one Type 076 now in commission, the Navy Marine Corps has become the PLA's primary expeditionary force, while the ground forces retain responsibility for amphibious assault operations against Taiwan and the defense of China's land borders.

But counting the actual size of the ground forces is far more complicated than the headline numbers suggest. Border defense units stationed permanently along China's entire periphery—separate from mobile operational units and the divisions and brigades deployed in Xinjiang and Tibet—number well over 100,000 personnel by Blasko's estimate. These troops form a significant portion of the total ground force strength. Beyond that, the PLA has expanded its use of non-active-duty uniformed civilians who fill non-combat roles on staffs at all levels except battalions, and work in academic, medical, political, logistics, equipment maintenance, procurement, and other support functions. The exact number has never been officially announced, but Blasko estimates it likely reaches into the high tens or low hundreds of thousands. These personnel are not counted in the two million active-duty figure, which means the oft-cited total may be substantially understating the actual workforce the PLA commands.

At the tactical level, the ground forces have undergone a fundamental shift in how they operate. Over the past decade, the army has given combined arms battalions and support battalions independent missions planned and executed by their own organic leadership and staffs, operating under brigade or regimental command. This represents a sharp break from the rigid, Soviet-style regimental system that preceded it, where regimental headquarters planned operations and battalion commanders mainly executed orders passed down from above. The new model distributes decision-making authority lower in the chain of command, a change that reflects both modern military doctrine and the demands of the kind of complex, joint operations the PLA now conducts across multiple theaters and domains.