The People's Liberation Army (PLA; simplified Chinese: 中国人民解放军; traditional Chinese: 中國人民解放軍; pinyin: Zhōngguó Rénmín Jiěfàngjūn) is the military arm of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the de facto armed forces of the People's Republic of China, consisting of land, sea, strategic missile and air forces. Initially called the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army, the PLA was established on August 1, 1927 which is celebrated annually as "PLA Day". The People's Liberation Army's insignia consists of a roundel with a red star bearing the Chinese characters for "Eight One", referring to August 1 (Chinese: 八一), the date of the 1927 Nanchang Uprising. The PLA is the world's largest military force, with a strength of approximately 2,250,000 personnel (about 0.18% of the country's population). The PLA comprises five main service branches, consisting of the PLA Ground Force, PLA Navy (PLAN), PLA Air Force (PLAAF), Second Artillery Corps (strategic missile force), and the PLA Reserve Force. Military service is compulsory, in theory, for all men who attain the age of 18; women may register for duty in the medical, veterinary, and other technical services at ages as young as 14. However, a draft in China has never been enforced due to large numbers of volunteers from China's huge population. Demobilized servicemen are carried in a ready reserve, which is reinforced by a standby reserve of veterans and by the militia. The United States Armed Forces[N 1] are the military forces of the United States of America. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.[6] The U.S. has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military. The President of the United States is the military's overall head, and helps form military policy with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), a federal executive department, acting as the principal organ by which military policy is carried out. The DoD is headed by the Secretary of Defense, who is a civilian and Cabinet member. The Defense Secretary is second in the military's chain of command, just below the President, and serves as the principal assistant to the President in all DoD-related matters.[7] To coordinate military action with diplomacy, the President has an advisory National Security Council headed by a National Security Advisor. Both the President and Secretary of Defense are advised by a seven-member Joint Chiefs of Staff, which includes the head of each of the Defense Department's service branches as well as the chief of the National Guard Bureau. Leadership is provided by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.[8] The Commandant of the Coast Guard is not a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. China (Listeni/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó), officially the People's Republic of China, is a sovereign state located in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the capital city of Beijing.[14] It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau).[15] The PRC also claims Taiwan -- which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity -- as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War.[16] Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, China is the world's second-largest country by land area,[17] but only the third or fourth-largest by total area, dependent on whether the surface areas of various inland bodies of water such as the Great Lakes are included in the total area of a country.[g] China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) long, and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas. The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (US), America, or simply the States, is a federal republic[10][11] consisting of 50 states, 16 territories, and a federal district. The 48 contiguous states and the federal district of Washington, D.C., are in central North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is the northwestern part of North America and the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific.

• published: 20 Nov 2013
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