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The People’s Liberation Army’s Academic Institutions

  • Published
  • By Kenneth Allen, Mingzhi Chen
  • China Aerospace Studies Institute, Air University, Maxwell AFB, AL

The basis for any military is education and training. Without this foundation, we would just be armed groups of men, marauding our local areas. Education and training allow tactics, techniques, and procedures to be transmitted as lessons learned from one generation to the next. These eventually form the basis for the doctrine and strategy that guides modern militaries. To this end, CASI was tasked with investigating the academic system of the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army.

The PLA’s academic system has undergone a number of transformations through its history, not least of which occurred as a result of the 2015/16 PLA reforms. Each reform reveals how the PLA and the Communist Party view the world at the time, and where they need to place emphasis on educating their armed wing. This round of reforms is no different. 

https://airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/documents/Research/Other-Topics/2020-06-11 PLA Academic_Institutions.pdf