By Andrei Pinkov

In terms of uniforms and equipment, the PLA Forces in HongKong are completely different from the other PLA armies including its key forces in Mainland China. In politics, it represents China's wish to stress the significance of HongKong's return to China's sovereignty. Speaking from the military point of view, it demonstrates the feature of one army with many systems and a tendency towards disarmament. The PLA forces in Hong Kong will be the first generation to use a new helmet. It's design is similar to that largely used by the U.S.Army in the Gulf War. At the same time, the new uniform the "97 type" is much more modern in form, quality and other aspects than the uniform used by it's regular army. The new uniform and personal equipment raises the curtain on a new era. One that will focus on massive disarmament.

A Study of the previous history of the PLA shows that changes in military uniforms and personal equipment are connected with massive disarmament. For example, the army decreased from 4 million in 1955 to 2.5million in 1958, the lowest point in history. At the same time, China also introduced a Russian-style system of military ranks and uniforms. The "87 type" military uniforms came into existence from the process of the "One million army disarmament" of 1986 and 1987, and the system of military ranks was restored once more late on.

According to the reports from the official Chinese media, the "97 type" has been researched since 1993 and is supposed to be in use by the army around 2000. With the introduction of the "97 type" new military uniform, the disarmament is likely to happen after 2000. Looked at from outside the new uniforms are close in design to those of the advanced countries and with the new domestic-made helmet will increase the cost of each soldier's personal equipment by over 30%. From this we can estimate, that the new disarmament will amount to over 0.5 million in total so that it can represent the so-called " picked troop" policy.

Moreover, according to the information from the PLA, PLA forces in Hong Kong enjoy a salary more than nine to ten times higher than those in mainland China. Lieutenant Liu Zheng Wu the chief commander of the Hongkong PLA has a salary of about 12000 H.K. dollars each month that is higher by 2500 H.K.dollars than the salary of the president Jiang Ze Ming. The military sources also confirmed that it is so because of the large much difference in prices between Hong Kong and mainland China. It said that PLA forces in Hong Kong can use their higher salary to purchase personal necessities in Hong Kong, however, to maintain military discipline, they are not allowed to mail what they purchase to their home in mainland China. The number of PLA forces in HongKong is limited to one Brigade for ground forces, one unit for navy forces and the one regiment for the Air force, however, the annual budget for these amounts to one billion Hong Kong Dollars, about 0.129 billion dollars in U.S.funds.

Concerning equipment, what impressed witnesses about the PLA in Hong Kong was two 520-ton type 037-2 fast attack craft missiles ( No. 772, 771, four in total) with a speed of 32 knots, they are equipped with six C801M SSM, the active radar homing to 80 km at 0.9 Mach; one twin 37 mm and two twin 30 mm guns. All the weapons are governed by an 88C fire control system with the TV, Thermal Viewer search installations and a laser range finder. Also the Rice Lamp fire control radar is able to detect more than 10 targets simultaneously, therefore the type 037-2 is comparatively strong in the capacity of the all weather battles and in that of ECM. The two type 074 LST ( No. 7593,7594 ) are estimated to be of the one thousand ton displacement class, sealed body, that possibly can transport about ten light tanks or vehicles. All the above vessels are based in the Anchuanzhou Island, the new PLA navy base with an area of 2.5 acres and width and length of 400 meters, the gulf itself is 200 meters wide.

The Air Force consist of 12 Z9B helicopters which are located in Shigang air base and 22 J8-2 fighters which still remain in Guangdong province near Hong Kong, other local news sources indicated that the J8 -2 will be replaced by J8 -2M ( equipped with Russian-made ZHUK radar) soon.

In the Army, the impressive main heavy equipment is to be the 21 WZ551 APC with 25 mm cannon. Also the personal equipment has been largely changed, and includes the 85 type 7.62 mm submachine gun, the 86 type 5.8 mm assault automatic rifle similar to the French FAMAS.

It is important to understand the characteristics of the "One army two systems", it means that the Chinese government may concentrate it's limited funds to establish more key forces on the same level as the PLA in HongKong.

This could influence it's strategic military power in East Asia obviously.