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"By insisting on combining capable regular army with powerful reserve forces, the "two fundamental changes" have guided the overall situation of national defense construction. Notable improvement in the quality of the construction of reserve forces has also accompanied the advancing steps of the qualitative construction of the army." [2]

During the past 20 years, a great deal of research has been conducted in the West related to China's military and its modernization effort. [3] However, Dennis Blasko's "New PLA Force Structure" [4] was one of the few detailed studies, which deals with the PLA? reserves system. Today the number of soldiers in the PLA reserve is estimated to be 500-600,000 including 70 infantry, artillery and air defense (AD) divisions, and 100 independent infantry, artillery regiments. [5] This force will eventually outnumber the total of troops in the PLA active duty force. [6] It is a force of considerable size and combat potential, but the number of studies on this topic is surprisingly limited. [7]

The PLA regular force is gearing towards a smaller and more responsive power projection force under the concept of ?ocal Wars Under High Tech Conditions? This is not a doctrine per se but a description of the universe of conflict scenarios deemed most likely to be faced by the PLA in the short-to-medium term by the political-military leadership. [8] Ten to twenty percent of PLA is trained and equipped to be rapid reaction units and fight such wars . [9]

However, the defense of the Chinese mainland cannot and is not being ignored. The People? War doctrine still has its place in proscribing procedures and policies that will govern PLA operations in an unlikely, but potentially devastating all-out total war. A traditional large active duty force may not be the most cost-effective way to perform those missions in the 21st century. In 1983, the first step was taken to build a reserve system for all of the services, modeled to some extent on that of the United States' military reserve forces. [10] An April 1998 expanded meeting of the Central Military Commission (CMC) emphasized the need to expand the reserve force. After the meeting, Military Districts (MD) were ordered to step up the implementation of plans to build reserve units. [11] The reserves and the militia were to receive any equipment not needed in the People's Armed Police (PAP) or slated for storage. While the PAP does not operate any heavy equipment and used mainly small arms, it does have mechanized units with APC, and large quantities of small arms.

According to Blasko, there are a number of advantages of a large reserve force. Maintaining a reserve force is at one estimate, one-tenth the coast of active duty force. [12] A larger reserve force also would be able to assist with many of the disaster relief and community service missions that the PLA, PAP, and militia are often called to perform. [13] Reserve forces would be better trained and equipped than the militia or PAP, and possibly more disciplined than the militia, and as such would serve well in construction, emergency supply, medical assistance, and policing.

As the reserve force grows in size, the requirement for maintaining a large militia force will probably be reevaluated. Much of the existing militia strength would be of questionable military value in a modern conflict. [14] One of the key roles of the US Reserves is to keep a pool of trained specialists in technical specialties. These include POL and water units, supply transportation, medical, intelligence, civil affairs, and training units, usually designed to support large formations at corps and army level. The US Army National Guard has most of the reserve combat units. The PLA? reserve system seems to have both the supports units and the reserve combat units.

However, a number of pertinent questions related to the PLA reserve system remain unanswered. Such questions include [15] :

This paper is a preliminary study and might not answer all these questions. By using sources mainly from Chinese official publication, it can present a clearer picture of the PLA reserve systems.

This is a quick history of the PLA reserve according to People's Daily English Edition [16] :

China's reserve army was first founded in 1955. At that time, Chengdu, Wuhan, Kunming and Lanzhou military area commands organized over 100,000 reserve soldiers.

In the 1990s, it was enlarged from a single infantry force to a comprehensive force including infantry, artillery, armoured forces, signal corps and anti-chemical warfare corps.

In 1995, China enacted laws to protect the construction [structure] of the reserve army.