Over three and a half years ago, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, announced his dream of building a strong army, an idea that has since been the basis of all work concerning military affairs.
From combat capability to strengthened Party leadership and unprecedented reform, Xi, as commander-in-chief of China's armed forces, has directed the path for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and brought great changes to it as it celebrates its 89th anniversary of founding on August 1.
WHAT ARMY SHOULD BE BUILT?
Xi put forward the dream of a strong army during an inspection tour of Guangzhou's armed forces in early December 2012. It was less than a month after he assumed office as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, and chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission (CMC).
Xi said achieving a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has become China's biggest dream in modern history.
Xi later elaborated on what he meant. At a meeting with national lawmakers from the armed forces on March 11, 2013, Xi said that following the command of the Party, capability to win wars, and having a proper working style, are the fundamentals of building a strong army.
These tenets became the guideline of central authorities' work concerning military affairs and national defense.
On March 23, 2016 when inspecting the National Defense University of the PLA (NDU), Xi said military colleges needed to be strengthened for China to build world-class armed forces.
In a commentary published on May 25, the PLA Daily, flagship newspaper of China's armed forces, said a top army should have world-class equipment, organizational form, combat system, staff quality, strong training level and military theory.
A world-class army has the ability to fight and defeat the world's major powers, it said, and added that only a modernized transformation with new concepts could achieve this end.
In a group study of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on July 26, 2016, Xi called for building a strong armed force commensurate with China's international status and compatible with national security.
STRENGTHENING COMBAT CAPABILITY
Improving the army's combat strength has become a major focus.
But the modernization level of the Chinese army is inadequate to safeguard national security, and it lags far behind advanced global peers. The Chinese army is not capable enough of waging modern warfare, and officers lack command skills for modern warfare.
Following Xi's requirements, a great discussion and education campaign was held in the PLA and the armed police force in 2014. From the headquarters to the most grassroots squad units, from logistics departments to combat units, from generals to privates, the whole armed forces discussed how to steel themselves and made concrete reforms.
"One of the changes has been to stress real combat drills," said Li Yinxiang, a professor in military strategy in the NDU. Over the past three years, the PLA held hundreds of drills at regiment and brigade level and above, simulating combat environments as realistically as possible.
"In drills, we usually plugged colored banners in all over the exercise fields before, beating drums and sounding gongs. It seemed to be very fierce, but it was not a real combat scenario at all," Li said.
"But now, there are no banners, drums or gongs at all. The environment in exercise fields is like the real environment in combat," Li added.
Thanks to the leadership's efforts and development of equipment, recent years witnessed great progress of the combat strength.
Since 2012 when China's first aircraft carrier "Liaoning" was commissioned, the PLA Navy has gained more and more experience in the utilization of aircraft carrier strength through regular sea training.
On July 6, the heavy-load airfreighter Y-20 was commissioned, a crucial step for the PLA Air Force in improving its strategic power projection capability.
The ongoing large-scale joint drill in north China's Zhurihe training base showed that the PLA is paying more attention to modernized combat.
More army aviation units joined in the drill compared to last year, and the PLA is taking advantage of new combat units such as special warfare, technical and space reconnaissance, electronic countermeasures and others.
