IF THE People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were a company, it would be about to lose its position as the world’s largest corporate employer. When troop cuts recently announced by Xi Jinping, China’s president, are completed in 2017, the ranks of China’s armed forces will have shrunk by 300,000 to 2m, putting it just behind Walmart, a retailer (see chart). It would still be by far the world’s largest military outfit.
China | Reforming the armed forces
Command and lack of control
A cut in the number of troops may presage wider military reform
|BEIJING
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline "Command and lack of control"
China September 19th 2015
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