-- Military friendship exchanges have witnessed increasingly vigorous progress. Since 1979, China's army has established friendly relations with the armed forces of more than 100 countries, setting up military attache offices in 90 or so countries. And more than 60 countries have established military attache offices in China. Over 20 years, 1,300 Chinese military delegations have visited about 80 countries. Of this total, 180 delegations were led by high-ranking officials. During this time, about 2,100 foreign military delegations involving tens of thousands people visited China. Half of these delegations were composed of such high-ranking officials as ministers of defense, commanders-in-chief of the army, navy or air force, and chiefs of the general staff. China's Navy has visited 20 countries since the 1990s. The visit to the United States, Mexico, Peru and Chile in 1997, the first Pacific crossing for the Chinese fleet, had a notable impact on relations between Asian-Pacific militaries. The National Defense Academy of China has received 749 military delegations from 79 countries involving 6,407 soldiers. Of these, 69 delegations were led by general staff officers. The Military Science Academy of China has conducted exchanges with research organizations from 27 countries and territories.

-- Developing friendly cooperative relations with the armies of neighboring countries. The Chinese army has all along placed the development of friendly cooperative relations with bordering countries in a prominent position. During the 1990s particularly, these exchanges have been strengthened and mutual trust and cooperation increased. For several years, China's military delegations at various levels have visited 40 countries in northeastern Asia, Southeast Asia, southern Asia and Central Asia. At the same time, Chinese troops in border areas have conducted exchanges with troops from bordering countries. For instance, the Chinese fleet has made port calls in Southeast Asian nations during five consecutive tours. China also hosted the ASEAN Military Forum, with representatives of 21 countries attending in Beijing. In July 1994, China and Russia signed the Agreement on Preventing Dangerous Military Action. In August of 1995, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense negotiated the Sino-Russian Border Cooperative Agreement with counterparts in Russia. In April 1996, the heads-of-state of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan and Tajikistan gathered in Shanghai to signed the Agreement on Strengthening Mutual Trust in Military Fields in Border Areas. In April 1997, in Moscow, the presidents of these five countries signed the Agreement on Mutually Reducing Military Force in Border Areas. The fifth Sino-Russian presidential summit produced a joint statement, which for the first time precisely delineated the 4,200 kilometers of border between Russia and eastern China. In November of 1996, China and India signed the Agreement on Taking Actions to Strengthen Trust in Border Military Control Area.

-- Participating in UN peace-keeping actions. In responding to UN requirements, since 1990, when China first dispatched military observers to a UN peace-keeping action, China has dispatched 437 military observers in 32 groups to six UN peace-keeping missions, including the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), the UN Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM), the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), the UN action in Mozambique (ONUMOZ) and the UN Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL).

In 1992, China sent engineer army to join in the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). China dispatched 800 officials and soldiers in two groups to Cambodia. During 18 months, they enlarged four airports, rebuilt four roads with a total length of 640 kilometers, and built and repaired 47 bridges. Their efforts contributed a great deal to the smooth completion of the peace-keeping action in Cambodia.

-- Further promoting military construction. The _PLA Daily_ on January 8, 1999, carried excerpts of an address by President Jiang Zemin to an important PLA meeting held on December 25, 1998. The speech, entitled “Twenty Years of Experience in Military Construction”, explained how to correctly handle seven relations. This analysis was a review of the past 20 years of military construction and a document of great significance in promoting military construction and in realizing the objective of military and national defense modernization at the turn of the century. The following are excerpts of this address.

(1) Concerning the relationship between war and peace, in the past, isolated and facing foreign hostility, we stood up to severe military and political threats. So it was correct to prepare for defensive war, to prevent the dangers of war. But there were some incorrect points in our understanding, which did not conform to reality. They thought a third world war was inevitable and imminent. During the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of CPC, our Party made a correct judgement of international situation, putting forth that peace and development are the two main themes in the world today, and the force for peace is growing faster than that for war, so it is possible to avoid global conflict in the long run. This new, scientific judgement of the situation laid a solid foundation for a shift in the focus of the work of our Party and State as well as providing a guiding ideology for military construction. Since the end of bi-polar political pattern in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the world has experienced profound changes. Through scrutiny and scientific analysis of the situation, the CPC Central Committee has concluded that the international trend towards relaxed relations is irreversible, and that it is possible to realize favorable international and regional environments. China must firmly undertake the reform and opening program, continue to accelerate the pace of modernization and concentrate our energy on national construction. The CPC Central Committee also pointed out: Hegemony and power politics still exist; complicated contradictions concerning territorial, ethnic and religious issues remain; and regional conflicts seem inevitable in some places. We must firmly strive for the unification of our motherland, safeguard our country's territorial integrity and maintain a sharp vigilance on the danger of war without a moment's negligence. We must have a long-term plan for the modernization of the army. Meanwhile, we should increase our preparedness for national defense and combine these two efforts into an organic whole.

(2) Economic development and the construction of a strong national defense are two strategic tasks in China's modernization construction. In fact, these two major tasks tally with each other, requiring us to deal with them according to the reality of China in the primary stage of socialism. The past 20 years of practice have given us a clearer understanding of this issue.

First, we must take economic construction as central. The construction of a strong national defense should follow the path of overall economic construction. Continuing economic development so as to increase the country's economic strength on a large scale is the basis of resolving all problems China meets, including those met in the drive to modernize national defense. It is also the key to increasing China's international competitive ability and to safeguarding the country's independence and sovereignty under pressure from hegemony and power politics. The construction of national defense should support this general goal, not impede it.

Second, while concentrating on economic construction, we much strengthen the construction of national defense, maintaining continuous development on the basis of the growth of national financial power. Modernization in national defense is a major part of China's socialist modernization drive. A solid national defense is guarantee of a country's security and economic development. If we failed to enhance the power of national defense and constantly improve the military's technical abilities, we would be in a susceptible position if war breaks out along a border or on a global scale. It would be difficult for us to safeguard the security of our country. National defense and military preparedness must be able to guarantee the country's interests and safety.

Third, a system, by which national defense and economic construction promote each other and are coordinately developed, must be set up. National defense should be subordinate to and serve economic construction. The army should contribute in an active way to the economic construction of the nation. Those facilities suitable for both military and civil utilization should be used jointly. The scientific and technological industries involved in national defense should serve both military and civil goals. Full consideration of the requirement of national defense and the military should be made while undertaking economic construction, especially in the construction of infrastructure facilities, so as to promote economic development and simultaneously enhance the ability of national defense.

(3) The relationship among revolution, modernization, and standardization of the armed forces is critical to realizing a modern and effective military. China's army is an armed bloc carrying out revolutionary and political tasks under the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China. Its nature is different from the nature of militaries in capitalist countries. And the modernization of the Chinese army is also different from that of the armies of capitalist countries. Giving priority to revolutionary construction is the nature of China's army and therefore dictates the direction of its modernization drive. At the same time, it produces the strength of spirit for the realization of modernization. Therefore we should greatly promote the construction of political ideology, persist in the radical principle of Party leadership over the military and maintain the nature, principle and true quality of the armed forces. The main contradiction today is that the equipment used by our troops could not cope with modern warfare. So realizing modernization in the armed forces is a major task in enhancing the army's fighting capability. Military construction should focus on modernization, and all other works should fall under this focus. The standardization of the military is a natural requirement of military modernization. To some extent, without standardization there can be no modernization. During the course of military standardization, a major task must be to define the fruits and experiences made in army revolutionary activity and modernization by way of law and regulation. This is aimed at running the army strictly by law and regulation. The overall requirements on the army棥皌o be eligible in politics, to master military skills, to have a good style of work, to be highly disciplined and to offer strong guarantees” should be followed in the overall construction of the army, thus bringing revolutionary, modernized and standardized goals into all works of the army. As the revolution, modernization and standardization of the army interact and promote each other, they cannot be considered separately, but must be considered in a unified and overall way.

(4) Correctly dealing with the relationship between quality and quantity is very important to the military construction. China encompasses vast territories with complicated topography. In addition, Chinese military equipment is relatively backward. Therefore it is necessary for the army to maintain a considerable scale. However, an overly-large scale could impede military modernization. With the world experiencing daily advances in science and technology, and with the corresponding developments in military force and weaponry, the enhancement of military quality is constantly becoming more and more important and plays an even more critical role in national security. Therefore, we must take qualitative improvements in the armed forces as a guiding principle. The adoption of advanced scientific and technological knowledge and techniques is key to raising the ability of the military. Science and technology should be used in every field during military modernization, thus raising the combat ability of the armed forces through applying advanced technologies.

(5) A balance must be struck between the standing army and the reserve forces. The masses serve as a powerful resource for the Chinese armed forces. No matter how the weaponry and tactics develop, the Chinese military must continue to depend upon the masses as key to preparedness and victory. Through combining our historical experiences and the present situation, we can persist in and develop the ideology of a people's war. Under this ideology, importance should be attached not only to the development of a crack standing army but also a huge reserve force. By doing so, we can maintain a smaller peace-time army but use more reserve forces in times of conflict. The construction of reserve forces should be suited to the traits of future war and the development of a socialist market economy. In addition, importance should be given to the quality of this work, and complete systems and related policies and regulations should be set up. We should also have a considerable number of reserve and militia troops. Efforts should be made to raise the reaction speed and ability to deal with combat. Meanwhile, further readjustment and improvement should be made in the system of mobilization for national defense to raise the capability of mobilization according to the principle of “combining peacetime and time of war, uniting the military and the civilian masses, and make the masses a ready reserve for the military”.

(6) Reforms must involve inheriting good traditions while renovating and rejuvenating the military. History has shown us that the reforms serve as a motive force in the development of our armed forces and a cardinal factor in achieving great progress in military construction. The fine tradition of the Chinese military developed over a long period of practice clearly reflects the traits and advantages of our armed forces. Tradition is the guaranty of the military's ability to retain its nature and fighting force. Without tradition, the nature of the military will change. Under the present conditions, our military's task and the environment our military faces have changed greatly. This requires us to undertake bold innovations based on tradition, thus allowing tradition to play a guiding role in the development of modern practices. Only by so doing can our military maintain exuberant vitality and energy and stay in an invincible position. For 20 years, our military has undertaken a series of reforms aimed at enhancing the military's combat capabilities. These have produced great breakthroughs in increasing the military's overall efficiency and its fighting capability. With a long view, the military structure must be further improved to solve problems in the military leadership system and troop structure, such as the proportion of officers to enlisted troops. At the same time, efforts should be made to set up policies and regulations suitable to the demands of the development of a socialist market economy through the deepening of reforms, so as to give full play to the enthusiasm of the armed forces.

(7) A balance must be found between learning from foreign experiences and in maintaining the traits of our military. In today's world, if a military closes its door to the outside and refuse to learn from other countries, it is impossible for that military to realize modernization. The construction of modernization demands our military face the world, catch up with global trends, learn from the good experiences in military modernization of other countries, especially from the developed countries, and selectively introduce foreign advanced technology, equipment and management practices. Our military is an institution of the people under the leadership of the Communist Party. It must maintain its political nature and political advantages forever. We cannot simply copy all the principles of foreign countries in administering the military, nor their mode of military modernization, because of differences in national conditions. And even in terms of those good experiences of foreign militaries, we cannot simply copy them, but according to the reality of our military we must absorb them after selection and innovation. We must persist in the road of building a modernized military with Chinese characteristics.

(CIIC)