China's sweeping military reforms are proceeding apace. In a meeting in Beijing on Tuesday with the country's top military leadership, President Xi Jinping announced the start of the next phase in the effort to thoroughly modernize the Chinese military . The program, launched in late 2015, aims to enable China to wage modern warfare by updating the military's structure, its command and control, and, in particular, its service branches' ability to conduct joint operations. Xi's latest announcement highlights his administration's progress with the plan, expected to be in place by 2020. Nevertheless, it will be a hard-fought campaign for Beijing. Reforming the military's structure hasn't been easy. Many components of the modernization campaign put personnel and even branches of the armed forces at a disadvantage.