PLA: lawyers wanted

We'll have more in due course about the recently announced policy changes regarding Chinese military law, but here's an interesting excerpt from a story in the South China Morning Post:

The PLA [People's Liberation Army] will add legal advisers to its lower ranks -- a move one expert said could help protect against any possible military coup.

In the past, only brigade commanders or more senior officers had legal consultants, said Zeng Zhiping, a military law expert at the Nanchang Institute of Technology in Jiangxi. Without such advisers, lower units were at risk of blindly following superiors in times of instability, Zeng said.

"Some ambitious senior officials may abuse their position and cultivate a power base, using blind allegiance from subordinates, sowing the seeds of a potential military coup."