Lanzhou Military Region

Lanzhou Military Region
Lanzhou Military Region (highlighted)
Simplified Chinese	兰州军区
Traditional Chinese	蘭州軍區
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Lánzhōu Jūnqū

The Lanzhou Military Region was one of seven military regions in the People's Republic of China. It directed all People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police forces in Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, and Ngari Prefecture in northwest Tibet. It was headquartered in Lanzhou in Gansu Province. It is bordered to the south by the Chengdu Military Region, and to the north by Mongolia, the Altai Republic, which is a political subdivision of the Russian Federation, and Kazakhstan. This region is now part of the Western Theater Command due to the military reforms of 2015.

In 2006 the International Institute for Strategic Studies attributed the Region with an estimated 220,000 personnel, a single armoured division, two motorised infantry divisions, one artillery division, one armoured, two motorised infantry, one artillery, one anti-aircraft brigades plus a single anti-tank regiment.^[1]

The Region included two Group Armies (the 21st at Baoji and the 47th at Lintong) plus two Armed Police Units (the 7th and 63rd). The known smaller formations included the 12th Armoured Brigade ('84701 Unit') at Jiuquan, Gansu. The region also included the Xinjiang Military District, unusual among PRC military districts in that it contains a significant number of combat troops (the 4th Infantry Division, 6th Infantry Division, 8th Infantry Division, and, apparently, the 11th Highland Motorised Infantry Division reportedly either at Urumqi or in the Karakoram Mountains (Blasko 2000).^[2]

The first, longest-serving and most influential Commander of the Region was Lieutenant General Zhang Dazhi, who held the post from 1955 to 1969, and then went on to become Central Commander of the PLA Artillery Forces from 1969 to 1977.^[3] In October 2012 Liu Yuejun was named commander of the Lanzhou Military Region.^[4] Yuejun became commander of the new Eastern Theater Command on February 1, 2016. From 2014 Liu Lei was the Lanzhou MR Political Commissar.^[5]

Organizations affiliated with the Lanzhou Military Region often used the nickname "combat" (Chinese: 战斗; pinyin: zhàndòu; lit. 'battle fight'), including the Combat Performance Troupe (Chinese: 战斗文工团), but not the People's Army Newspaper (Chinese: 人民军队报), which was the sole exception among all five major military region newspapers in this regard.