The State Council Information Office released a white paper titled The Diversified Employment of China's Armed Forces at a press conference on April 16. The document is the eighth defense white paper the Chinese Government has issued since 1998 and the first to focus on a specific theme, said Yang Yujun, spokesman of the Ministry of National Defense and Deputy Director of the ministry's Information Bureau. In the future, the Chinese Government will do a better job presenting China's national defense and military forces to the general public at home and abroad by submitting an orderly combination of comprehensive and thematic white papers, which will be issued alternately.

This year's white paper, which consists of four parts, namely preface, main text, concluding remarks and appendices totaling 15,000 Chinese characters, is available in eight languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Arabic and Japanese.

Military strength

The white paper gives a brief account of the reform of China's military forces in recent years. As it introduces the duties, tasks and capacity building of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the PLA Navy, the PLA Air Force, the PLA Second Artillery Force, the People's Armed Police Force and the militia, the document affirms that China's armed forces are fully capable of performing diversified missions. It for the first time makes public the strength of the PLA's mobile operational units, the designations of its combined corps, the numbers of service people in the PLA Navy and Air Force and the missile lineup of the PLA Second Artillery Force.

The PLA Army mobile operational units include 18 combined corps, plus additional independent combined operational divisions (brigades), combining a total strength of 850,000, the white paper reported. The combined corps, composed of divisions and brigades, are respectively under the seven military area commands (MACs). The PLA Navy has a total strength of 235,000 officers and men, commanding three fleets, namely the Beihai Fleet, the Donghai Fleet and the Nanhai Fleet. The PLA Air Force boasts a total strength of 398,000 officers and men with an air command in each of the seven MACs as well as an airborne corps. The PLA Second Artillery Force is equipped with Dong Feng ballistic missiles and Chang Jian cruise missiles.

International outreach

Since 2002, the PLA has held 28 joint exercises and 34 joint training sessions with 31 countries in accordance with agreements or arrangements, the white paper said. It has undertaken 36 urgent international humanitarian aid missions, and transported relief materials worth more than 1.25 billion yuan ($203.5 million) to 27 disaster-stricken countries. To date, China and other Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states have conducted nine bilateral and multilateral military exercises.

To fulfill China's international obligations, the PLA Navy carries out regular escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia. It conducts exchanges and cooperation with other escort forces to jointly safeguard the security of the international sea lines of communication. As of December 2012, the PLA Navy task groups had provided protection for four World Food Program ships and 2,455 foreign ships, accounting for 49 percent of the total number of escorted ships. They rescued and assisted four foreign ships, recovered four foreign ships released from captivity and saved 20 foreign ships being pursued by pirates.