And they voiced their pledge Monday to fulfill the historical mission of mechanizing the army and equip it with Information Technology (IT) applications, which had been laid down during the Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress held in mid November last year.

Military security represents the top priority for China's state security, the PLA deputies noted, and powerful military security guarantee is required by the building of a prospering society in China in an all-round way.

China is in need of a strong military force in the course of building a prospering society, according to NPC deputies from the Chinese army.

"Military might, economic power and the innate cohesive strength of the Chinese nation constitute the three nuclei component parts of the overall national strength," said Huo Xiaoyong, a NPC deputy and a noted researcher of arms and services with the prestigious University of National Defense.

"Without the corresponding strong military force, the all-round national strength is inadequate," Huo added.

While peace and development remain the major themes of the contemporary world, undefined factors are on the rise, the international political and economic order, which are unjust and irrational, have not been altered fundamentally, and sources of war have not yet been eliminated, and the motive factors are inclining to be accelerated and generalized.

On the topic of military security, Yao Yunzhu, a woman with a doctorate of strategic studies at the PLA Military Academy of Sciences, referred the situation confronted with the Chinese army to the popular classic poetic line that " the wind sweeping the tower heralds a rising storm in the mountains."

"All countries are beefing up their spending on national defense in a hope of being able to keep a possible upper hand in the rapid volatile changes in the world," Yao said, adding that " If our army does not seize the opportunity and fail to face up the challenges, we'll possibly run into the risk of being left far behind," said Yao.

The Chinese armed forces have been shifting its emphasis to its competence and high efficiency from quantities and large scales, and to the type of being science-and-tehnology-oriented from the relative human power concentration, Yao acknowledged. And noticeable progress has so far been scored in the country's national defense modernization.

(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2003)