China's 39th Army Group recently trained at Mt. Baekdu. The army is expected to transfer to the Northeast zone and continue to prepare for the sudden change in Korean peninsula./ Source from search engine Baidu

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By Hong Soon-do, Beijing correspondent, AsiaToday - As China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) will go through a geographic reorganization, with the current seven military commands re-divided into four strategic zones, the Northeast zone among the four is expected to take the role of a war zone in preparation for sudden change in the Korean peninsula. The zone's troops is expected to advance right away to Pyongyang in the worst case.

A Chinese military source in Beijing said on Thursday that the 16th and 39th Army Groups of the Shenyang Military Region are the current military units that would be deployed to the Korean Peninsula in a war. These unites, where approximately 160,000 soldiers serve, often stage an armed protest near Baekdu Moutain whenever Korean peninsula gets in an unstable situation. The size of the army is not small nor huge. 

However, if the country's seven military regions are consolidated to as few as four, the situation will be much different. Above, the military strength will be much greater than now. The Northeast zone is likely to absorb almost entire troops of the Shenyang Military Zone and some of the troops of the adjacent 20th, 26th and 54th Army Groups as well as some of the 27th, 38th, and 65th Army Groups of the Beijing Military Zone.

Besides, it's meaningful that the response to the rapidly changing situation on the Korean peninsula is not one of the tasks set for the Northeast Zone but the most important mission.

There are several reasons that China assigned a mission to prepare for the rapidly changing situation of the Korean peninsula. Most of all, it is closely related with China's internal prospect that tension would build up in the Korean peninsula in the future. Besides, it shows the country's plan to seize the situation immediately if any sudden change occurs.