As of now china has the largest army in the world. Their equipments are not as good as ones issued to british army and US army, standard chinese arm is type 54 pistol and the more recent type 90 pistol. For ground force, china has estimate 7000 tanks, it's newest tank type 99 is consider one of the 12 strongest tank in the world, however due to expense in production of these tanks, type 90 is not largely in service. The majority of chinese tanks are type 98 main battle tanks and type 96. So I wouldn't say their ground force is as backward as people may think. China been developing advance defence system since 1980, I know for fact they they possess EMP weaponry since 2007, however at that time they were having problem with power supply (I have some internal info on this matter). China also possess the technology to defend against air strike, Satellite espionage, and naval attack. China possess very advance defencive technology. For air force, Chinese air force as of now is currently in third generation of fighter development, with J-10 being its most advanced fighter with super-sonic capability, I would not say China has strong air force, however, in situation of defence, it's capable of hold air space with help of anti-air defence.For naval force, almost all China's naval force is green water, which means short ranged with little to no capability of doing long range naval battle outside of Chinese water. Recently due to the pirate incident however, it is indicated that Chinese navy does indeed have some degree of blue water battle capabilities. China declared it intention of building carrier in 2009, with carrier in chinese navy, PLA is no longer a green water based navy, but long range. Also with the help of carrier, now the chinese water are now all within air strike range should need arise. Apart from conventional ships, China possess very advanced submarines, due to early Soviet help. Chinese submarines are one of the best in the world. So generally speaking, PLA navy is very defence oriented. however in some area its navy is very capable of taking out special targets in long range, but no ability to fight large scale naval warfare.
Here's all my info on PLA. I think PLA is very defence oriented, but definably not backwater army with only number and no technology. With Chinese annually increase military spending, it is possible PLA's army issue equipments will soon exceed British army. And for each chinese army men, they are not badly trained as well. Chinese soldiers pulled some very incredible feats during the korean war with US, with no air-support of any kind, solely on the incredible discipline, they were able to defeat and push back US army to the point which the commander request pentagon consider using nuclear device to ensure victory. And do keep in mind, back then PLA has very little in term of arms and they had no air units at all. So no, I wouldn't say China produce bad soldiers, in fact, I think China produce incredible soldiers whom can take on british soldier one and one in fair combat.
Here is my PLA rating:
Soldier: 4/5 for soldier discipline 3/5 for equipments 7/10 in total
Ground force: Mobile forces: 4/5, defence capability (Anti-air, anti Satellite, anti ground and naval defence) 5/5 9/10 in total
Air force: air superiority on chinese air 4/5, outside chinese air 3/5 (this includes any kind of missle strikes) total 7/10
Naval: green water navy 4/5, blue water navy 2/5, total 6/10
Anyone who wish to add on my infos (which could be wrong, do point out if you find faults). please do and please rate chinese army base on this. I would like to know how PLA fair in people's eyes. Thank you.