Sunday 27 September 2009

The top brass who can’t fight


Some in the senior PLA ranks are only trained to sing, dance or act

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Guanyu said...

The top brass who can’t fight

Some in the senior PLA ranks are only trained to sing, dance or act

Minnie Chan
27 September 2009

They may be generals in the People’s Liberation Army, but they are not battle leaders and most of them have no military training at all.

Rather, many are just singers, dancers, actresses or musicians.

There are at least 30 such non-combatant generals in the PLA. Among the most famous is folk singer Major General Peng Liyuan, wife of Vice-President Xi Jinping. Peng will become China’s first lady if Xi succeeds President Hu Jintao in 2012 as is tipped.

Other pretty faces among the PLA top brass include Song Zuying, another folk singer, who is reportedly a special favourite of former president Jiang Zemin, and dancer Liu Min, wife of a deputy director of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, Li Gang.

Among the other national celebrities who are PLA generals are tenor Li Shuangjiang , former table tennis star Wang Tao , and master of the two-stringed fiddle, or erhu, Fu Gengchen .

They may not add to its fighting capabilities, but they do make the PLA the world’s most star-studded military.

Shanghai-based PLA specialist Professor Ni Lexiong of Shanghai’s East China University of Political Science and Law said that the recruitment of top entertainers had been an important tactic for the Communist Party to win the guerilla war against the Kuomintang during the civil war in late 1940s.

The Red Army was poorly equipped and fed. “Revolutionary performances” helped boost the morale of soldiers, he said.

“The non-combatant force was like a special army during the war time because of their powerful impact on soldiers’ morale,” Ni said.

After 1949, the PLA’s general political department was set up to maintain correct political attitudes in the army, setting up its own film production company and a song and dance troupe. The two units were given the right to select top talent across the country, and these new recruits were exempted from military training.

When the PLA restored military ranks in 1988, the two propaganda units were given special political privileges. A few top performers who joined the film studio in the early 1950s were promoted to major generals in the 1990s.

However, Ni said, the system had been abused during peacetime and entertainers were elevated simply by their fame and the favour of state leaders.

He said that Joseph Stalin, of the former Soviet Union, had been the first communist leader to appoint senior military officers as a personal favour. “Stalin promoted a chef to be a senior colonel because he liked the barbecued mutton he made, according to the memoirs written by his successor Nikita Khrushchev,” the professor said. “Khrushchev, who was a lieutenant general because of his military achievements in the war to defend his country in 1940s, said he was upset by such an unreasonable promotion.

“Soldiers would ask why these entertainers could become non-combatant generals so easily. ‘Why should we risk our lives to fight if a war breaks out?’ “

The promotion of Song, now 43, to vice-admiral in the navy, made public early this year, has sparked a public outcry. Unlike Peng, who joined the PLA when she was 18 and started her career as an ordinary soldier, Song was assigned to the navy in 1991 at the age of 25, after she had become a nationally acclaimed folk singer. That her promotion was alleged to have been a favour of Jiang’s made it even more controversial.

But retired PLA general Xu Guangyu said that the real ranking of these non-combatant generals was different from those of the combatant forces.

“It’s an honour ranking designed for professions who make contributions to our army,” Xu said.

He said such top performers were given the rank of major general in order to guarantee their high salaries, good housing and other lifelong benefits.