Jiang (rank)

Jiang (将) (Wade–Giles: chiang; traditional Chinese: 將) is the rank held by general officers in the military of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan. The People's Liberation Army uses three levels at present while Taiwan uses four, with the rank equivalent to the fourth being treated as a field officer rank in the PLA (i.e. senior colonel equivalent to brigadier general ). This difference is found in other militaries as well. For example. in the British Army a brigadier is considered a field officer {cn}, while the equivalent rank in the United States Army, brigadier general, is considered a general officer. The PLA uses the same rank names for all services, prefixed by hai jun (海军) ("naval force") or kong jun (空军) ("air force"). While the ROC does the same for enlisted ranks and company-grade officers, it has distinct names for the higher naval ranks. Because of the additional field officer rank in the PLA, ranks with the same Chinese name do not correspond to the same rank. A similar situation occurs in the militaries of North and South Korea with some ranks.