The Chinese president promoted to more than 170 senior officers as part of the ongoing military reform.

Last week's event was the largest promotion of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) since Xi Jinping became President and President of the Central Military Commission of China, SCMP reported on December 15.

A long-standing problem in the PLA is the lack of a correlation between rank and position. For example, an army colonel commander will have a higher rank than the leader of the major general's division, a situation that cannot be found in most other armies in the world.

While the dual system created loopholes and created corruption, previous reform efforts have failed because of protests from top Chinese Communist Party leaders and those who want to maintain the status quo to ensure personal rights protection.

An anonymous insider said that in the past, officers in the administrative field were easier to advance because of their close relationship with senior leaders, causing discontent with the officers in charge. dangerous missions. "A combat unit commander may take years to get promoted because the PLA has not participated in a major battle for decades," the man said.

While China has made great strides in upgrading and developing new military hardware and hardware systems, analysts have repeatedly said they are still lagging behind in command and control systems. in modern warfare. Drew Thompson, a senior researcher at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said that China's military modernization was uneven.

"The biggest challenge for PLA is to improve both hardware and software. They are capable of conducting preemptive attacks, but the open question is that they can conduct a coordinated campaign in what tech event or not, "Lee said.