CGTN

Decoding China's vision for new era world-class army

BEIJING, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinese People's Liberation Army (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.

With two million servicemen, today's PLA pledges to build up new types of combat forces that have the ability to conduct special operations, all-dimensional offense and defense, amphibious operations, far seas protection and strategic projection.

Over the past few years, Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), has reshaped the PLA and is leading it to become a world-class military force.

World-class forces

The chairman of the Central Military Commission's thinking on strengthening the military answers the fundamental questions of what kind of armed forces China is pursuing and how China should go about building them.

In December 2012, barely a month after he assumed the top post in the Party, Xi spoke of the need to build a strong military.

"To realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, we must adhere to combining the building of a prosperous country with that of a strong military," Xi said.

The PLA has reshaped its leadership and management system, optimized its structure and reformed its military policies and institutions since 2015.

At the V-Day parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in September 2015, China told the world that it would cut the number of its troops by 300,000 and vowed that it would never seek hegemony.

In 2017, a road map was unveiled at the 19th CPC National Congress that China will fully transform the PLA into a world-class military force by mid-21st century.

It said that in the new era, the task of building the national defense and the military has also opened a new chapter. By 2020, the PLA will achieve its mechanization, make significant strides in informatization and gain substantial improvement in strategic capabilities. It also set a midterm goal for the Chinese military, to turn itself into a modernized power by 2035, and a long-term one, to become a top-tier military in the world by 2050.