Army to reshuffle lower-rank officers

In a first, Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered People’s Liberation Army to switch posts at the grassroots level, to boost military’s morale amid the anti-corruption drive that witnessed several top-level indictments.

The President ordered PLA’s chief officers in charge of military and political work at the grassroots level to switch posts.

The move is expected to help train quality grassroots officers who excel as military commanders and political chiefs, a circular issued by the PLA general political department said.

The circular was endorsed by Mr Xi, also chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

This is the first time the military has comprehensively undertaken work in this regard, said Saturday’s edition of the PLA Daily. The PLA piloted a similar scheme with military and political chiefs at the battalion and company level in 2014.

As part of the pilot programme, a brigade in the 27th Combined Corp ordered company chiefs to move positions after two years in office, while all battalion chiefs should change posts if they had not done this before.

The general political department is also mulling making this a regular practice in the armed forces and a “new normal” in training grassroots officers, the circular added.

The rejig in the world’s biggest 2.3-million-strong army comes in the wake of an anti-corruption move initiated by Mr Xi, which resulted in the indictment of some top military officials, including the former CMC vice-chairman General Xu Caihou.