China's Auxiliary Forces - PAP and Militia

tamsen_ikard

Junior Member
Registered Member
Who dares to attack China with ground force ? :p

In the past China had something like 100M reserve when China was poor, backward and almost relied on ground force entirely
But China as a rising power may need to attack others with Ground Force to attain its political goals. If China has to fight an Urban warfare in Taiwan for example. Street to street fight with just 1 million active ground force with such a low reserve could be problematic.
 

A potato

Junior Member
Registered Member
Ukraine war has shown how wars with high tech adversaries could become a war of attrition with high requirement for men from reserves.

Taiwan and South Korea both maintains huge reserves. If China has to fight against these armies it will have disadvantage when it comes to mobilizing already trained men from the reserves. Why does China only have a reserve of 500k?

With China's threat environment. Shouldn't it have a military reserve of atleast 3-4 million?
That's only like the active reserve force (The 500k) I belive China's actual reserve is way higher because every soldier that finishes their 2 year service recites a speech saying that they will return when war breaks out or something like that.
 

Biscuits

Major
Registered Member
That's only like the active reserve force (The 500k) I belive China's actual reserve is way higher because every soldier that finishes their 2 year service recites a speech saying that they will return when war breaks out or something like that.
This, large portions of the population are trained due to selective mandatory service. Theoretically, calling up 5-10% of the population on short notice would be possible. But practically, it's hard to imagine for which scenario this would be needed.
But China as a rising power may need to attack others with Ground Force to attain its political goals. If China has to fight an Urban warfare in Taiwan for example. Street to street fight with just 1 million active ground force with such a low reserve could be problematic.
The armed police are very capable at counter insurgency. Their numbers can also be surged, like in Xinjiang.

If China had to deal with an internal uprising in Taiwan, armed police and a small number of elite PLA units with air/naval support would likely be the answer.

However, if Taiwan is attacked by large amounts of foreign troops, I.e. a real enemy invasion of China, then it is unlikely China would engage in protracted warfare with invaders and separatist fighters in the streets. Instead, they would cordon off the whole province by air, sea and internet, get the loyal Chinese citizens to vacate operation areas and enter refugee zones, destroy all infrastructure that isn't controlled the government forces, and then surround the surviving fighters from the countryside.

For that type of operation, they mostly need bombs and not too many ground soldiers.
 

drowingfish

Junior Member
Registered Member
That's only like the active reserve force (The 500k) I belive China's actual reserve is way higher because every soldier that finishes their 2 year service recites a speech saying that they will return when war breaks out or something like that.
yes but in reality due to skill fade most people that have retired for a period of time will require retraining. assuming that skill fade becomes significant after two years, that means China can call up its retirees from the past two years and not have to devote significant time and resource to training them (maybe they will just require a quick refresher on whatever their job will be). factoring in that some will have become unfit for service and others not required, we are looking at somewhere between 500k-750k that China can call up immediately. which is pretty good, its larger than most armed forces in the world.
 

redalert3000

Just Hatched
Registered Member
I'm not sure but I read somewhere that in addition to the PLA and PAP China's total paramilitary forces number close to 10 million and that they also have 3 million pmcs

Now I don't know if those numbers are correct or not but given your population of over 1 billion it doesn't seem out of place.
 
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