The main combat forces consist of nine armored divisions, 25 infantry divisions (two trained for amphibious operations), and three artillery divisions. There are 33 infantry brigades, nine armored brigades 15 artillery brigades and ten helicopter regiments. All the infantry are motorized, and nearly half are mechanized (equipped with armored personnel carriers and some tanks). All infantry units are gradually being converted to mechanized units. The air force also has three airborne divisions and the navy has a the equivalent of a marine division.
The army is armed with about 7,000 tanks, 7,500 armored personnel carriers (about a third of these are more modern Infantry Fighting Vehicles like the U.S. M-2 Bradley). There are about 20,000 artillery and 400 helicopters.
The Chinese armed forces are shrinking from their current size of 2.2 million to 1.6 million troops in the next two years.
They've already shed 2 million troops in the last couple decades, as they've abandoned their strategy of fielding lots of foot-mobile infantry that would go irregular if a Soviet army drove deep into China.
This type of mechanized army isn't by definition an offensive force. A mobile force would be well suited to defense should China be invaded--especially since the Soviets could no longer field a massive army that no Chinese armored formations could stop in conventional warfare.
But a mechanized army could be used for offensive warfare. Like many things, it depends on what those at the top want to do with the tool they are creating.
