It has been a big year for China's military.
In April, China's first domestically produced aircraft carrier was launched, which was followed by the debut of its new generation of destroyer in June. In July, the country's first aircraft carrier allowed visits by the public for the first time.
As the 90th birthday of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) approaches, the country's army has shown how much its military capacity has grown and how committed it is to maintaining world peace.
A STRONGER ARMY
The PLA has come a long way since its birth during the armed uprising in the city of Nanchang on August 1, 1927, when it had only 20,000 soldiers.
Ninety years later, the country boasts 2 million servicemen, making it the world's largest military force, according to a national defense white paper titled "China's Military Strategy," published in 2015.
Besides the growth in numbers, the PLA has armed its soldiers with world-class equipment.
During China's epic V-Day parade in September 2015, the country displayed its Dongfeng-5B intercontinental strategic missiles, designed to carry nuclear warheads, and its Dongfeng-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles, described by some media as the "carrier killer."
Other cutting-edge weaponry included the PLA's state-of-the-art tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles, and its new generation of airborne early warning and control aircraft, carrier-based fighters and attack helicopters that fly low across the sky.
In April of this year, China launched its second aircraft carrier in a Dalian shipyard in northeastern province of Liaoning. It is the first carrier designed and built by China. The country's first carrier, the Liaoning, was a refitted Soviet Union-made carrier put into commission by the PLA Navy in 2012.
Another Navy development was the launch of a new destroyer, a domestically designed and produced 10,000-tonne vessel.
The destroyer is the first vessel of China's new generation of destroyers equipped with new air defense, anti-missile, anti-ship and anti-submarine weapons.
For military observers, all these achievements can be seen in a video titled "PLA Today" released by the Ministry of National Defense (MND) last week.
The 16-minute English-language video, with Chinese subtitles, displayed a host of unmanned "smart" military vehicles, reconnaissance robots and drones, followed by footage of live-fire drills in the South China Sea and the East China Sea in July last year.
"If war is declared, we are ready," one line said.
