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Explainer | What is China’s Joint Operations Command Centre and who’s in charge?
- China’s centralised military headquarters sits at the top of the PLA’s combat chain of command
- The JOCC puts Xi Jinping and his top military decision-making team in supreme command of China’s combat operations
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Liu Zhenin Beijing
Earlier this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also the chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), told the country’s armed forces to be ready for war.
Xi made the remarks during an inspection of the CMC’s Joint Operations Command Centre (JOCC) on November 8 – his first visit to the base since the Communist Party’s national congress last month, when he secured a third term as head of the party and the restructured CMC.
During the inspection, he reaffirmed the importance of the JOCC in the Chinese military.
What is the Joint Operations Command Centre?
The JOCC is the highest level headquarters through which the president and his top military decision-making team exercise command of the Chinese military’s combat operations.
The JOCC sits at the top of the PLA’s chain of command. Below it are the joint operational commands of China’s five military theatres, and then the units under each theatre.
This framework was established in 2016 under Xi’s structural reform of the military to “better centralise the supreme leadership and command of the military in the CMC”.
As the nerve centre of the military, the JOCC is also headed by Xi. All other members of the CMC are also members of the JOCC.
What does the JOCC look like?
The exact location of the JOCC is classified, but it is said to be situated in a reinforced underground complex on the west side Beijing.
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