The ministry said in a statement that "the PLA has set compulsive standards for soldiers' weight and pledged to pay more attention to military fitness training, which aims to create stronger armed forces, in line with the reform and development of the military physical training guideline for 2015-2020."
"Physical training should be linked to personnel management. Overweight soldiers and officers will not get promotions," the guideline said.
It described physical training in the military as, "a basic way of enhancing soldiers and officers' physical and mental quality".
PLA Major General Luo Yuan said, for his part, that "it is strength but not weight, and muscle not fat that is to be compared on the future battlefield."
He added that "the guideline reflects the principle of running the army strictly; it is an international convention to quantify soldiers' weight standards."
Meanwhile, the PLA has declined to disclose the new weight standards for Chinese servicemen, but speculation is rife that these standards for soldiers and officers should differ.
