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Transformation from Military - Civil Combination Centred on Military Production to Military - Civil Combination Centred on Civil Production

Aviation Industry should combine military production with civil production. After the Second World War, aviation industry of the developed countries had completed their transition very quickly from war time to peace time and their civil aircraft turnover occupied a large proportion in total civil sales. In the late 1950s civil production of China's aviation industry once had fairly quick development thanks to the implementation of Chairman Mao Zedong's instruction: "Pay attention to learning both military and civil production technologies." After 1961, civil production was affected by the idea that military industry should be based on the assumption of fighting wars earlier and on a large scale, and should be prepared for those wars. The influence of the "left" ideology was another factor. Civil production once was criticized as " not the professional work" , which greatly hurt the workers and staff. Hence the aviation industry had mainly military production.

In 1978, the total civil production value of the industry only was 6.5% of the total production value and the ratio of military aircraft to civil aircraft was 95:5; more than half surplus production capability had not been utilized and the economic result of the industry was not good. This industrial structure of aviation industry had lasted until the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Congress of the Communist Party of China when a series of policies and instructions concerning the combination of military and civil production were stressed. Civil production of aviation industry had thus ended a period of tortuous road and regained vitality and began to develop.

In the new period of development, there was a distance to go in implementing the policy of military - civil combination. The main task of aviation industry from 1979 to 1981 was to implement the policy of "military - civil combination, peace - war combination, taking the military production, as its main task and supporting the military production with civil production" proposed by the Military Commission of CCCPC. The industry was required to "find more rice for cooking", to develop civil production for " feeding the industry itself' because the industry could no more feed itself due to a sharp decrease of military order. Civil production had gained fast increase due to the adoption of profit contracting and the policy of encouraging civil production. The proportion of civil production value in the total production value of the whole industry increased to 26% in 1981. The characteristic of this period was that civil production had started and the military - civil combination was still centered on military production.

During the period from 1982 to 1984, Deng Xiaoping, Chairman of the Military Commission of CCCPC once pointed out: "Every Ministry of defence industry must go all out for research and production of civil products apart from fulfilling the task of military research and production," and Premier Zhao Ziyang also pointed out: " defence industrial enterprises should be a military - civil combination system." According to these instructions and requirements, the Ministry of Aviation Industry first of all clarified its guiding ideology: practic¬ing military - civil combination was not only a short term measure to solve the problem of feed¬ing workers and the staff by using the surplus capability, but also was a long - term plan to contribute to the four modernizations.

After the ideology was clarified, the overall adjustment on production capability, organizations, science and technology forces and investment direction was implemented, enabling the change of product structure of aviation industry from single military product structure to that of military - civil combination. A number of mainstay civil products had been developed and about a dozen civil production lines were established with lots of products sold well domestically and some already entered into international market. Characteristics of this period was the great change from serving only the national defence to serving the development of civil aviation as well as the national defence, and serving technical renovation in other departments of the national economy and enriching market and export.

After 1985, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided that the national defence construction should be subject to the economic construction according to the change of international situation. And in 1986 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council decided to put the Ministry of Aviation Industry under the direct leadership of the State Council. These decisions and planning had further guided the change of product structure of aviation industry - from "military - civil combination centred on military production" in the war preparing period to "military - civil combination centered on civil production to suit the construction need in peace time - completely discarded the thinking of development just on military production. Civil products development in multi-channel and multi-direction were carried out afterwards, enabling the proportion of its production value in the total production value of the industry rising rapidly to 40.1% in 1985 and 61.2% in 1986. The civil product service covered every area of the national economy and 29 provinces, cities and autonomous regions, except Taiwan province.