China Will Cut Military 25%, Party Chief Says

China will cut its military by 1 million, reducing by almost 25% the world’s largest standing armed forces, Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang said today.

Hu, on a four-day trip to New Zealand, also said that China, which has only a small nuclear arsenal, would be willing to take part in negotiations aimed at reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons.

“China will cut back conventional forces starting this year--a decrease of 1 million conventional Chinese forces,” Hu said at a press conference.

New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange said later that Hu told him China planned to make the 1-million-man reduction this year.

Western Experts Surprised

In Peking, the official New China News Agency paraphrased Hu as saying China will “cut 1 million troops from its army this year and next.”

Western diplomatic sources estimated the current level of China’s military force at 4.3 million: 3.5 million in the army, 500,000 in the air force and 350,000 in the navy.

Military experts in Peking said Hu’s pledge to cut the military by 1 million came as a surprise.

“The figure certainly is large,” one Western attache said.

“If you’re talking about cutting a fourth of your military out of the picture, that must mean it’s necessary. They probably have bloated staffs, or people on the retirement rolls that they’re just going to finally cut away.”