Xi Jinping reiterates rallying call to Chinese military, stresses need for Communist Party’s ‘grip’
- Grass-roots units are encountering new conditions and changes in mission, president says
- He emphasises importance of lower ranks and says anti-corruption drive must reach all levels
Xi told a Central Military Committee (CMC) meeting on the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) grass-roots organisation that the armed forces needed to adapt to a fast-changing environment, the military mouthpiece PLA Daily reported on Monday.
“The grass-roots level of the military is experiencing new conditions and changes in its mission, construction, daily operation, unit structure, personnel composition and social environment,” Xi, the CMC’s chairman, was quoted as saying.
He said that, because these lower-ranked units formed the basis of the military, they needed to be under the Communist Party’s tight “grips” to ensure their strength and discipline.
“Our commanders and soldiers should be courageous and our troops should be powerful as tigers,” he added.
Since 2015, Xi has led massive military reform in which the PLA was modernised, the command chain was restructured, combat-readiness was emphasised and the party’s control over the armed forces was strengthened.
In previous comments, Xi had said China was “confronted with unpredictable international developments and a complicated and sensitive external environment”, and said Chinese service personnel had to be well prepared to answer the call to fight at any time.
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With China’s defence budget constantly rising – it has the world’s second-largest military spend, at 1.19 trillion yuan (US$170 billion) in 2019 – the PLA has significantly increased the number, scale and intensity of its drills. In 2018 alone, 2 million personnel took part in more than 18,000 exercises.