The People’s Liberation Army is often described as “the largest military in the world.” But depending on who you ask and what you count, the details are murky and confusing. The deeper one dives into the numbers, the more complicated the picture gets, and the greater the differences between the Chinese and U.S. systems become. Though many recent reforms have surface aspects that appear to reflect U.S. structures, the new-look People’s Liberation Army does not mirror-image its American (or Russian) counterpart. Nor have its new organizations been tempered by combat. It is critical for defense planners, military researchers, intelligence analysts,
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