December 11, 2024: Chinese President Xi Jinping hasn’t come up with a workable solution for the Chinese military’s serious problems. The main one is corruption, which is pervasive and crippling. This was demonstrated when the defense minister was recently removed and replaced. It’s more difficult to deal with the many corrupt generals and admirals. All this corruption weakens the military. Finding enough honest junior officers to be promoted is difficult. This is a critical situation for the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, because Chinese soldiers and officers take an oath to defend the CCP which, in turn, is responsible for doing what must be done to rule the country effectively. After some reforms in the 1980s, the new relationship between the CCP, the military and the economy appeared to work for a few decades until they didn’t.

The Chinese military is an enormous collection of four separate services that provide employment for over two million Chinese. The military is officially called the People's Liberation Army or PLA and contains four separate services: the Ground Force, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Rocket Force. Between 2003 and 2005 the PLA reduced its peacetime strength by half a million personnel, from 2.5 million to about 2 million. Most of the reductions were in non-combat ground forces. This made it possible for more money to be spent on naval, air, and strategic missile forces. This was part of the Chinese shift from a large, low-tech, ground force to a military with the capability to operate far from the Chinese mainland, mainly in the South China Sea.

The Ground Force is the largest in terms of manpower, with about 975,000 personnel in twelve group armies sequentially numbered from the 71st Group Army to the 83rd Group Army. These armies are distributed to each of the five theater commands, with each command receiving two to three group armies. In wartime, numerous reserve and paramilitary units can be mobilized to reinforce the group armies. The ground forces reserve component comprises approximately 510,000 personnel divided into thirty infantry and twelve anti-aircraft divisions.

The Navy was, until the 1990s, subordinate to the ground forces. Since the 1990s the navy has undergone rapid modernization. The 300,000 navy personnel are distributed to three fleets, the North Sea Fleet headquartered at Qingdao, on the Yellow Sea between northeastern China and the Korean Peninsula, the East Sea Fleet headquartered at Ningbo, north of Taiwan, and the South Sea Fleet headquartered in Zhanjiangn adjacent to Hainan Island and the South China Sea.

The navy includes a seven-brigade Marine Corps with 25,000 troops. There is also a naval aviation force with 26,000 personnel operating and maintaining several hundred attack helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. For over a decade China has been seeking to create a naval force that can operate on the high seas far from the Chinese coast. China has never had a high seas navy before because it was seen as more important to control coastal waters.

The Air Force has 395,000 personnel organized into five Theater Command Air Forces that share 24 air divisions.   As of 2024, a new system has been established, consisting of 11 Air Corps Bases controlling air brigades. Bomber divisions, and a few special mission units remain divisions. Each air division has 2 or 3 aviation regiments. Each regiment has between 20 and 36 aircraft. An Air Brigade has 24 to 50 aircraft.

There is also an air defense component called the Surface to Air Missile or SAM Corps that consists of divisions and brigades. There are also three airborne divisions consisting of air force personnel trained as parachute infantry.

The Rocket Force has 120,000 personnel and operates nuclear and conventionally armed strategic missiles. China is believed to have between 300 and 500 nuclear warheads. The Rocket Force maintains seven bases. Six are assigned to the six theater commands while the seventh stores and maintains the nuclear warheads.

While all this sounds impressive, corruption in government, military and economy are still an issue, as has been the case for thousands of years. Corruption was reduced for about a decade after the communists took control in 1949. During that period the corruption revived and returned stronger than ever. The corruption in the military is so debilitating that Chinese leaders believe China cannot regain control of Taiwan using its current military. This became evident when President Xi recently inspected the rocket forces established to regain Taiwan and found most of the missiles were inoperable because of corruption within the procurement bureaucracy.

Assuming the corruption can be made to disappear, it would still take several years before a Taiwan attack could be attempted. Additional forces and weapons must be created without yet another reform effort being crippled by corruption. That sounds unlikely, but President Xi knows what he is up against and declares that he can make it happen. Chinese and Western historians point out that Chinese military incompetence and military corruption have been the standard for thousands of years. The corruption only abates if China is invaded.

It requires a major political effort to turn the corruption problem around and such efforts are often unachievable. Most wealthy Chinese know this and many have, at great expense, obtained foreign passports and moved some of their assets overseas as a form of insurance against another government collapse and possible civil war. That’s the way China has worked, and malfunctioned, for thousands of years. The CCP is seen as just another dynasty that prospered for a while and then failed. Chinese leaders pay attention to the thousands of years of Chinese history and cycles that continue to repeat.

While the Chinese military is of questionable value, the same cannot be said about Norinco/North Industries Group Corporation. This is one of the largest arms manufacturers and exporters in the world, with annual sales of over $80 billion. Norinco specializes in land-based systems for the Chinese military as well as a growing list of export customers. While some high-tech components are reserved for Chinese military versions, export customers can get anything else and even receive equipment modified so that specific non-Chinese components can be installed. Norinco will do just about anything to get a sale. Norinco doesn’t sell much to Western countries, except for commercial grade hunting and police weapons and accessories. In this market Norinco quality is competitive and their prices even more so. All this has enabled Norinco to become one of the top ten arms manufacturers in the world and the first Chinese firm to join a list long dominated by American and Western multinational firms.

Norinco is often the supplier of high-tech weapons to nations that are first-time users of these systems. Such was the case with Nigeria, which purchased some Norinco VT4 tanks. This is a popular export item based on the Russian T-72 design and a very capable system costing about $5 million per vehicle. In 2022 Norinco received user dissatisfaction reports about VT4 tanks sold to Nigeria. The Nigerian tank crews reported that in combat it took them 30 minutes to load and fire a 125mm shell. The problem turned out to be lack of training and poor maintenance. These two items have long been a problem for complex exports like tanks, artillery and warplanes. Some VT4 users reported problems that did not involve poor maintenance or poorly trained crews. China said it would take care of any problems, even training and maintenance. The recent discovery of a major design flaw in all T-72 type tanks was another matter.

Norinco export tanks are often less capable and cheaper versions of the ones China builds for its own forces. In some cases, the export models lack new features China considers secret and not for export. In most cases export models simply get less advanced and cheaper tech. Such was the case with the VT4 series of tanks. These are exported and not used by Chinese forces. The Chinese army uses the 54-ton Type 99, a superior T-72 variant that entered service in 2001, underwent a major upgrade to the 58-ton Type 99A in 2011 and is still in production. Over 1,200 Type 99As are in service so far.

The Chinese have over 6,000 tanks, with 2,500 of them modern designs. The rest of them are based on the Russian T-54/55. China developed variations on this 1950s design and built them under license as the Type 59. In addition to the Type 99A there are 1,500 of the earlier Type 96, which began as the Type 88 as China began to develop and build variations of the Russian T-72. The Type 96 and 99A are, like most current Russian tanks, further upgrades of the successful T-72 design. By adding better engines and other mechanical and electronic components, improved armored protection and improved 125mm main guns, the Chinese have managed to create a force of modern tanks superior to what the Russians have. China now has more modern tanks in service than Russia, which has had to put a lot of its most modern tanks in storage because it cannot afford to maintain and operate them.

Unknown to the Chinese was the fact that T-72-type tanks have a fatal flaw which was only discovered during combat with a foe equipped with Western anti-tank weapons. This was the case recently in Ukraine. The fatal design flaw was due to the use of an autoloader for the 125mm gun. This led to the total destruction of Russian tanks hit by a top-attack ATGM/Anti-Tank-Guided Missile. None of the Russian ATGMs used top-attack because of the additional cost and the fact that Western tanks did not use autoloaders. Western tanks were not automatically destroyed by top-attack ATGMs and were often equipped with features that defeated top-attack.

Most Chinese tanks use an autoloader. Only the older T-54/55 clones don’t. The fix for this is a new turret that includes the design features found in Western tanks and require an additional crew member to load the shells. A new turret would store the 125mm ammunition in an armored area behind the main gun. That storage area would have blow-out panels. This means that if the ammo storage area is penetrated by a shell or top attack ATGM, the crew would survive because the force of the explosion would be outwards, away from the crew because the armor between the storage area and the crew is much sturdier than the roof-mounted ammo storage top panels. The new turrets would cost more but how much more depended on whether the autoloader was retained or the turret had the more conventional and safer manual loader and four man crew. Most Western tanks retained the four-man crew and installed more safety features in the turrets and their tanks in general. One of the few exceptions is the French Le Clerc, which uses an autoloader that is less vulnerable to the top-attack vulnerability.

China has always tried to keep the price of its tanks cheap, for its own troops as well as export customers. China would have built more Type 99As were the tank not so expensive at $3 to 4 million each. That is why so many of the cheaper $2 million 43-ton Type 96 tanks remain in service. In addition to being cheaper, the Type 99A and the Type 96 are considered adequate for most potential battlefield opponents. Western tanks tend to cost about $7 million each and continue to defeat T-72 type tanks regularly.

The top-attack problem was a surprise to the Russians and turned out to be a fatal and largely unknown flaw in Russian tank designs. It presented a major problem to most users of T-72 -type tanks. There are many variants of the T-72 design and what makes them different is the quality of the components used. The T-72 was the most successful Russian post-World War II tank design and the basic model was, in theory, pretty solid and reliable. The T-72 also proved to be a good platform for variants that added new or more armor along with better electronics and improved engines. This resulted in some impressive tank models. The most outstanding of these has been the Russian 46-ton T-72B3. As proof, consider that most of the new tanks the Russian army has received since 2000 have been refurbished and much upgraded T-72B3s. At the end of 2021 the Russian Army had about 2,600 tanks in service and 65 percent were the T-72B3s, which you hear little about.

The best Chinese T-72 mod is the Type 99A, which is 25 percent heavier than the T-72B3 and even more expensive to build. That’s because the Type 99A has better armor protection and electronics. The Chinese can afford this while the Russians cannot. Chinese manufacturing capabilities are superior to what the Russians had when the Cold War ended and this makes a big difference for tank design and production. India and Pakistan have not been able to match Russian or Chinese production standards or development capabilities, which is largely due to corruption and government regulations that make it difficult to innovate and excel. Most of the best Indian and Pakistani design and production talent moves to the West. A glance at the design and development stars in the West, especially the United States, shows a lot of these South Asians playing leading roles. China managed to keep more of this talent at home and even attract some that had settled in the West to return. In the end high-tech, like everything else, is about the people creating it. Because of this Norinco can modify a VT4 to eliminate the autoloader and add a Western style 12omm smooth-bore tank gun in a VT4. Brazil asked for this and Norinco said they could do it.