China’s People’s Liberation Army working with civilian rail authorities to boost logistics

The joint military-civilian initiative follows a call for better collaboration between the two at a major party meeting in June

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The People’s Liberation Army is seeking to improve its logistics as part of its reform process. Photo: AFP

Published: 6:00am, 17 Dec 2024Updated: 8:36am, 17 Dec 2024

China’s military and railway authorities are working together to streamline military transport and ensure the smooth delivery of military consignments.

It marks the first major military-civilian joint initiative since a key Communist Party policy meeting in July called for progress in this area.

A resolution passed at the meeting, officially known as the third plenum, pledged to “improve military-local contact mechanisms” and “refine military-local standardised work collaboration mechanisms”.

Beijing is currently working to modernise the battle readiness and logistics capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army.

This month the military disclosed that a joint directive issued by the Central Military Commission, the supreme command body, and China Railway had said: “Both parties should … strive to forge a new era of seamless cooperation between the military and civilian sectors in the realm of transport and logistics.”

It aims to establish a collaboration mechanism to transport military supplies and looks to incorporate military delivery into performance assessments for the civilian rail authorities.

China National Defence News, an outlet owned by the PLA’s official newspaper, recently said that there are already examples of positive military-civilian cooperation on logistics, including an upgrade of a railway line used to transport military equipment to a port.