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PLA
Daily 2004-08-20
One road: Stick unswervingly
to the road of building a better army the Chinese way
On May 13, 1978, while talking
to the leaders of the General Staff Headquarters, Comrade
Deng Xiaoping offered his weighty advice in connection
with the damage inflicted on army building during the
"Cultural Revolution": "Directing war by such a colossal
commanding organ is bound to be defeated".
With "reducing bloatedness"
as the point of making breakthrough, Deng Xiaoping cut
down the number of the servicemen drastically and promoted
the Chinese way of building a better army therefrom.
The armed forces were downsized and reorganized for
three times in the early years of the 1980s, resulting
in its total number being reduced from 6.11 million
at peak time in 1975 to 3 million in 1985.
Would such a drastic reduction
weaken the battle effectiveness of the army? Deng Xiaoping
said with emotion: "Even if the war is going to break
out, we will still go on with 'reducing bloatedness'.
Being bloated is a reflection of our poor ability in
directing a war." He even asked a question in reply:
"Can a puffy guy fight better in war？"
People also noticed that the
grand disarmament in China was not a simple reduction
of military personnel, but a major strategically structural
readjustment of the armed forces. Along with the disarmament,
various new arms such as the army aviation force, the
naval shipboard aircraft force, the electronic confrontation
units and reserve forces were established at the same
time. With the formation of the group army, the special
forces in the army has outnumbered the infantry.
In 1987, the Central Military
Commission pointed out specifically that the military
training should center on the training of combined campaign
and tactics. In 1988, Deng Xiaoping emphasized at the
Enlarged Meeting of the Central Military Commission
that boosting the battle effectiveness must be made
the starting point and the goal of the military reform
and army building as well as the basic criterion for
testing various jobs.
In the days when Deng Xiaoping
was presiding over the day-to-day work of the Central
Military Commission, the people's army, developing synchronically
with the republic, moved steadily forward towards a
fewer but better, combined and highly efficient army
as a result of its historical leaps in terms of the
improved quality of military personnel, the highly effective
establishment, the progress by leaps and bounds of the
conventional weaponry, and the vital breakthrough in
defense-related cutting-edge technology.
(August 20, PLA Daily)
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