- Move designed to align senior officers’ ranks with their place in the broader hierarchy
- Current system creates loopholes, opportunities for corruption, observers say
Chinese President Xi Jinping last week promoted more than 170 senior military officers as part of an ongoing reform of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) designed to align people's ranks with their place in the broader hierarchy.
The move came after the release on December 8 of a circular aimed at providing clearer procedures for the promotion of officers with the rank of major general or above across all branches of the armed forces.
The mass promotion was the biggest ever carried out by Xi, who also chairs the Central Military Commission.
A long-running problem within the PLA has been the lack of correlation between rank and status. For example, a corps commander with the rank of colonel would have seniority over a division leader with the rank of major general " a situation that would be impossible in most other militaries around the world.
While the dual system created loopholes and bred corruption, earlier attempts to reform it failed because of resistance from top Communist Party leaders and others with a vested interest to maintain the status quo.
Military observers said the overhaul was long overdue.
One insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that in the past it was easier for officers in administrative positions to gain promotions as they had closer ties to senior leaders, which "caused resentment among officers whose duties required them to put their lives at risk".
"It could take years for the commander of a combat unit to earn a promotion (in rank) because the PLA hasn't fought a major war in decades," he said.
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Zeng Zhiping, an expert on military law at Soochow University in east China's Jiangsu province and a retired PLA lieutenant colonel, said a lack of checks and balances with regard to the promotion process had led to widespread abuse of the system, with some officers effectively buying their way up the hierarchy.
That had created the problem of senior officers lacking experience and, more importantly, the respect of their troops, he said.
"The new rules are essential for the PLA because it's impossible to convince any soldier to follow a commander who doesn't understand modern warfare."
Adam Ni, co-editor of the China Neican online newsletter, said the new rules would pave the way for the merging of the PLA's parallel hierarchies of ranks and job positions, though the process could take years to complete.
"In the long term, military ranks and (job) grades will be integrated into one system, which is easier for the top brass to manage and may help improve the PLA's command and control system," he said.
"But I am hesitant to say that this will lead to a fairer and more transparent promotion system, because there are other factors such as factional struggles.
"The PLA is an army that follows the rule that 'the party controls the gun'," he said.
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Antony Wong Dong, a military observer based in Macau said that Xi had been planning the streamlining of the ranking system for many years but had faced resistance from other senior officials.
"That's why Xi targeted senior officers with the circular," he said, adding that the move, if implemented successfully, was likely to improve morale among middle-ranking officers.
While China has made giant strides in upgrading and developing new military hardware and weapon systems, analysts have said repeatedly that it needs to strengthen its command and control hierarchy to meet the needs and challenges of modern warfare.
Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at National University of Singapore, said China's military modernisation had been uneven.
"The PLA's biggest challenge is simultaneously improving both its hardware and software," he said.
"While it is probably capable of conducting punitive strikes, it is an open question whether it can conduct a joint operation under hi-tech conditions."
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