HC Deb 11 February 1997 vol 290 cc87-8W
24. Mr. MacShane

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent estimate he has made of Chinese military strength; and if he will make a statement. [13738]

Mr. Soames

The Chinese armed forces are the largest in the world, with a strength of about 3 million. These are being reduced in size as part of a wider modernization plan which aims to create better equipped and more mobile conventional forces and to update China's missile forces and strategic nuclear arsenal. The size of the People's Liberation Army and of the Chinese military-industrial complex none the less means that modernisation will be a selective and gradual process.