The People's Liberation Army's 37 Academic Institutions

In June 2017, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) conducted a massive reorganization of its officer and noncommissioned officer (NCO) academic institution structure. It reduced the number of officer academic institutions from 63 down to 34 and NCO institutions from four to three. Several of the officer institutions also have subordinate NCO schools. It did this by downgrading, resubordinating, merging, reorganizing, and/or abolishing existing institutions and creating new ones. For...
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In June 2017, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) conducted a massive reorganization of its officer and noncommissioned officer (NCO) academic institution structure. It reduced the number of officer academic institutions from 63 down to 34 and NCO institutions from four to three. Several of the officer institutions also have subordinate NCO schools. It did this by downgrading, resubordinating, merging, reorganizing, and/or abolishing existing institutions and creating new ones. For example, the National Defense University was downgraded and the Navy's Marine Corps College and Air Force's Airborne Force College were abolished. It also began abolishing the National Defense Student Program that was created in 1999 in 118 civilian science, technology, and engineering universities. That program, which is not discussed in the report, will cease to exist when the last class of students graduate in summer 2020. It is still not clear what program will replace it. This report provides relevant background material on the overall PLA academic institution program and provides profiles of the current 37 academic institutions. Given the overall history of the academic institutions, more major changes can be expected to occur over the next decade.