PLA Lieutenant General Zhou Yaning, 59, has taken over as chief of the Rocket Force, replacing General Wei Fenghe, who has retired. Zhou Yaning made his first public appearance as its new Commander in mid-September when he attended a ceremony paying tribute to Xiang Shouzhi, a Chinese general who died early this month. According to his official biography, Zhou Yaning joined the PLA in 1976 and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General in July 2016.

A report in the official PLA Daily in 2014, when Zhou Yaning was a Divisional Commander of the missile forces, said he told soldiers to study an article on the 1894 Sino-Japanese war that called on the modern military to make sure it was ready for battle. The Qing dynasty lost the war to Japan in what is seen in China as a national humiliation. He was quoted as saying "It pays to be vigilant. This article is a deep reflection [on the war] and it should resonate with all officers and troops.”Previously, he argued in a 2011 paper that the missile forces should be focusing on new technologies rather than combat strategies, according to a post on a WeChat account run by the official Beijing News. It quoted him as saying “Warfare in the future will be largely dependent on weapons. Strategy will only help to refine and supplement the technology.” Six years earlier, as a Brigade Commander, Zhou Yaning was advising his troops to think outside the box during a training exercise: “You shouldn’t just stick to the norms ... your enemy won’t play by the rules.”