Xi on PLA's combat readiness
Here’s what I thought was worth noting in the March 10, 2021, People’s Daily.
Page 1: The lead story on the front page is about Xi leading the plenary of the PLA and the People's Armed Police Force. Xinhua English tells us that going ahead for the next five years, Xi emphasised the need to focus on combat readiness.
Here’s more: “Xi demanded efforts to step up building high-caliber strategic deterrence and joint operation systems. Underlining innovation-driven military development, Xi called for intensified efforts and more concrete measures in the pursuit of independent innovation in science and technology, to fully leverage the role of science and technology as the strategic support for military development.”
In the PD report, Xi adds that “it is necessary to increase the sense of responsibility, urgency, and initiative, and rush forward and implement the various tasks arranged in the annual plan for our army’s construction to ensure that the results will be effective at an early date.”
In addition, he talked about the unstable and uncertain nature of the current international situation, demanding that the “armed forces must always be ready to respond to all kinds of complex and difficult situations.”
The PD report has some more details. It talks about different speeches given by others, covering topics such as “acceleration of national defense science and technology innovation, the development of new domains of new quality combat forces...innovation of talent work…(and) improving the effectiveness of military asset management.”
Next, you’ve got a report on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ letter to Xi on China’s poverty alleviation. The Xinhua English report has all the details. This is, of course, golden for domestic propaganda purposes.
Page 2: If you are keen to know what the process was to approve some of the key documents released last week, such as Li Keqiang’s government work report, central and local budgets and the NDRC’s plan for 2021, here’s a dry report about all of this getting approved, with minor amendments. Next, here’s a report quoting a bunch of random Hong Kong civil society groups to bolster the claim that people in Hong Kong are happy with the likely changes to the electoral system. Of course, it’s still not entirely clear what these changes are going to be, other than the fact that they will lend greater control to the central leadership in Beijing under the maxim that “patriots” must govern Hong Kong.
Page 3: There’s a piece about the Chinese political system, which essentially tells us about how the people’s congress system is something that “has grown from the soil of China.” The purpose of the piece is to basically emphasise that the Chinese political system is democratic, home-grown, suitable to Chinese conditions and “safeguards the fundamental interests of the people.”
Here’s more: “The system characteristics and advantages of socialist democratic politics have given the world profound enlightenment. Many evaluations from the international community point out that an important reason for the success of China's economic and social development is the ‘success of the Chinese-style democratic system’.”
Next, you have Zhao Lijian defending BRI in the context of a question about how BRI partner countries tend to be quiet about human rights issues. Zhao used the opportunity to talk about how BRI has helped further human rights. “The broad consensus of the vast majority of countries is that China, through BRI cooperation with various countries, has contributed its solutions and wisdom to global development and the human rights cause,” said Zhao.
Page 5: There are three reports on the page, each talking about the recommendations regarding the 2015 plan, the NDRC’s plan and the budgets adopted at the second meeting of the Presidium of the Fourth Session of the 13th NPC.