Chinese Aviation History
Stepping into a New Period of Development (1977-1986)
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China smashed Jiang Qing counter revolutionary clique (the gang of four) at one blow in 1976, which cleared the biggest obstacle on the road of socialist China and helped aviation industry take a favourable turn. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Congress of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the focus of the Party's work shifted to the construction of socialist modernization. Soon the policies of "reorganization, reform, adjustment and improvement" and opening to the outside world, vitalizing domestic economy were implemented in the construction of national economy. Aviation industry, therefore, had stepped into a new period of development and begun the exploration of constructing aviation industry with Chinese characteristics.
According to the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the National Science Convention, the Ministry of Aviation Industry in 1979, in the light of requirement of the government, put forward the policy of "scientific research going ahead of the rest", "quality first" and "working according to economic law", with the objective of "producing one generation, developing one generation and exploring one generation" and simultaneously started to reform the industry's foreign trade system. In 1980, the system of contracting business responsibility, with profit contracting as its main content, was adopted between the government and the Ministry of Aviation Industry, and between the Ministry and its enterprises. This policy gave more power to enterprises in making their own decisions.
The development program was adjusted and compressed according to the guiding principle of "doing things according to one's capability and getting things done" in 1981. At the beginning of 1982, the Ministry of Aviation Industry put forward further the task of "four transforms" and "three breakthroughs". "Four transforms" were: transforming the purely military production structure to the combined military and civil production structure; transforming copy production to independent design and development; transforming the supply of products for domestic application mainly to the combination of supply for both domestic and foreign use and transforming the method of pure administrative management to the method of economic management as well. The " three breakthroughs" were: breakthrough in the development of new type of aircraft, breakthrough in civil production and breakthrough in export. The implementation of these general and specific policies and tasks played a guiding role in changing the face of the aviation industry.
The Twelveth National Congress of the Communist Party of China called for "creating an overall new aspect of the socialist modernization construction" in 1982. The " Decision on reforming economic system" was worked out at the Third Plenary Session of the Twelveth Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1984. The Military Commission of CCCPC made a decision in 1985 based on the change of international situation, that defence construction should be subject to economic construction. Under the guidance of these important policies, adjustment and reform of aviation industry were deepening gradually.
From 1983 to 1986, the Ministry of Aviation Industry put forward the plan for creating a new aspect gradually and issued regulations to give more power to enterprises in making their own decisions, and defined the objective of " accelerating replacement of aircraft, manufacturing more civil products and improving economic results" and the requirement of setting up combined military and civil products enterprises. New progress was made by the industry in scientific research, production, adjustment of product structure, reform of management system and improvement of economic result etc.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council made a decision in 1987 to reform the defence industry system, i.e. to bring it into the management channel of the entire national economy. According to this decision, the Ministry of Aviation Industry, summed up the work in the previous period, and further defined two major tasks for the strategic change. First, development policy changed from previous combination of military and civil productions with military production as the main task to the combination of military and civil with civil production as main task. Second, economic pattern changed from product economy to the planned commodity economy.
The development policy of the aviation industry was that: its production should be a combination of military and civil production, with civil production as its main task; aeronautical production as its base, with diversified business; scientific research should go in advance; quality first; and facing the world and joining in group competition. The general line of the system reform was also formulated, which was that the production of aeronautical products should be carried out according to a central plan, while civil production be open and cross-cooperation was encouraged to form group organization; administration to be simplified to energize enterprises and the functions of the Ministry should be changed to purely governmental (no more business management).
The year 1986 saw the 35 anniversary of the founding of the aviation industry of new China. During the past 35 years, China's aviation industry experienced tortuous road, overcame difficulties and reaped achievements attracting worldwide attention under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
A large scale aviation industrial system with fairly complete categories, military -civil combination and scientific research- production- education combination have been established on the weak foundation of old China. Aviation industry's total number of employees in 1986 was 27.8 times as many as that in 1952, metal cutting machine tools 28 times and construction area 35 times as much as that in 1952; the accumulated investment was 146 times, industrial total production value 63.7 times and profit 13.7 times as much as that in 1952. China's aviation industry has become a newly established technology condensed industry with a strong foundation in the Chinese national economy, and a powerful aviation industry in the world.
By the mid-1980s China's aviation industrial organizations had developed and manufactured more than 12,000 aircraft of 55 types in 25 categories of fighters, bombers, attack aircraft, transports, helicopters, trainers and special purpose aircraft as well as many types of super-light aircraft. China's aviation industry has become a powerful backing of the People's Air Force and one of the sources of supplying aircraft to China's civil aviation organizations. China has assisted the third world developing countries with Chinese made aircraft to strengthen their national defence capabilities.
China's aviation industry has set up 35 independent scientific research institutes, product design institutes, manufacturing process research institutes and material research institutes and, most of the 116 enterprises have established their own product design departments and manufacture process research departments as well as a number of large establishment for aviation scientific research and test. Aviation engineers and technicians occupy 13.7% of the total number of the people of the industry, one third of which are working on scientific research and product design. China has already developed and manufactured a variety of military and civil aircraft and the capability of developing modern advanced aircraft is increasing. Professional scientific research and technical renovation have been performed widely with lots of fruitful scientific and technological results, some of which even reached the world advanced level. China's aviation industry is now an industry with scientific research as its guide.
China's aviation industry has primarily established a production structure of military - civil combination. The total production value of civil production shares more than 60% of the total production value of the industry. Scientific technology and civil product provided by aviation industry are serving the development of civil aviation, technical renovation of the national economy, the light industry market and` export.
China's aviation industry was developed on the steady growth of the national economy and gradual improvement of the nation's industrial base. It enjoyed great support from relevent organizations of metallurgy, chemistry, construction material, machinery and electronics and in turn it promoted the development of these organizations in a certain degree. Raw materials and associated products required by aircraft manufacturing in China can be supplied from indigenous sources and, the ratio of Chinese made components for imported advanced equipments are increasing gradually. China has already established scientific research and production bases of raw materials and mechanical and electronic products.
China's aviation industry has already changed its self contained nature to the nature of opening to outside world. It has established cross-profession contacts with 28 institutes in many provinces and cities at multi-levels and in a variety of forms domestically and trade and scientific technological cooperative relations with 50 countries and regions the world over. Export of China's aviation products is expanding daily with good reputation.
Through 35 years of arduous experience and a great deal of practices of scientific research, production and construction, China's aviation industry has trained a contingent of managers, engineers and workers with good ideology, good working style and excellent professional knowledge. This contingent has accumulated both positive and negative experiences and wholeheartedly supported the line and policy adopted since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Congress of the Communist Party of China. With the strong desire to develop the Chinese aviation industry for the motherland, every one in the contingent works hard with carefulness, modesty and selfless spirit to climb the technological peak of the aviation industry.
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