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China's National Defense in 2008

III. Reform and Development of the PLA

Thirty Years of Reform and Development

From the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the PLA set out on the road of building a streamlined military with Chinese characteristics. According to the scientific judgment that peace and development had become the principal themes of the times, it made a strategic shift in its guiding principle for military building from preparations for "an early, large-scale and nuclear war" to peacetime construction, and advanced its modernization step by step in a well-planned way under the precondition that such efforts should be both subordinated to and in the service of the country's overall development. It set the general goal of building a powerful military, revolutionary in nature, modernized and regularized, and blazed a trail for building a lean military with Chinese characteristics. It underwent significant adjustment and reform, and streamlined the size of its armed forces by a million troops, thereby taking an important step forward in making itself streamlined, combined and efficient.

Entering the 1990s, the PLA began to vigorously promote RMA with Chinese characteristics. It established the military strategic guideline of active defense for the new era, based on winning local wars in conditions of modern technology, particularly high technology. It began to adopt a strategy of strengthening the military by means of science and technology, and a three-step development strategy in modernizing national defense and the armed forces, and promoted the coordinated development of national defense and economy. Regarding RMA with Chinese characteristics as the only way to modernize the military, it put forward the strategic goal of building an informationized military and winning informationized wars. Driven by preparations for military struggle, it accelerated the development of weaponry and equipment, stepped up the development of the arms and services of the armed forces, as well as forces for emergency mobile operations, optimized its system and structure, and reduced the number of personnel by 700,000. As a result, its capability of defensive operations increased remarkably.

At the new stage in the new century, the PLA has been striving to create a new situation in its modernization drive at a new historical starting point. With the Scientific Outlook on Development as an important guiding principle for national defense and armed forces building, it has acted in accordance with the strategic thought of balancing economic and national defense development and integrating efforts to enrich the country and strengthen the military. It has been dedicated to performing its new historical missions and improving its capabilities to counter various security threats and accomplish diversified military tasks. It has accelerated the composite development of mechanization and informationization, vigorously conducts military training in conditions of informationization, and boosts innovation in military theory, technology, organization and management, to continuously increase the core military capability of winning local wars in conditions of informationization and the capability of conducting MOOTW.