Zhao Zhuo: Profoundly Understand and Grasp Xi Jinping's Thinking on Strengthening the Military
Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military is an essential component of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. It manifests Chairman Xi Jinping’s expansive strategic vision and steadfast determination to support the strengthening of the nation through the strengthening of the military. Understanding and grasping the historical value of Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military is conducive to profoundly comprehending, from a strategic height, the decisive significance of the "Two Establishments," achieving the "Two Upholds," implementing the system of ultimate responsibility resting with the Chairman of the Central Military Commission [1], and transforming the study and implementation of Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military into a massive force for advancing the cause of strengthening the nation and the military.
Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military is an essential component of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.
Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military is both a scientific system of military theory and an essential component of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. It must be recognized and grasped as a whole within the theory and practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the New Era.
It represents the implementation of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in the military field. Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military is the Party’s military guiding theory as well as its military strategy for governing the country in the New Era. It takes as its fundamental focus the support of the great cause of national strengthening and rejuvenation through a strong military. It takes the realization of the Party's goal of strengthening the military in the New Era as its core requirement and follows the path of Chinese-path military strengthening as its practical orientation. It has resolved major issues such as what kind of powerful people's military should be built in the New Era and how to build it, reflecting the objective laws and strategic considerations that rejuvenation requires a military resurgence, a strong nation requires a strong military, and governance requires command of the military.
It is rooted in the practical soil of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the New Era. The Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has unified the two great goals of enriching the country and strengthening the military, coordinated the two major affairs of development and security, and planned the modernization of national defense and the armed forces within the process of national modernization. It has elevated the persistence of the Party’s absolute leadership over the people's military to a basic strategy for persisting in and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the New Era. It has incorporated the deepening of national defense and military reform into the general framework of comprehensively deepening reform, integrated the military innovation system into the national innovation system, subsumed the military's talent work under the broader talent work of the Party and the state, and integrated the law-based governance of the military into the overall plan for the comprehensive law-based governance of the country. This has formed a strategic layout for strengthening and flourishing the military, promoting the high-quality development of national defense and military modernization, and providing powerful military support for the "Four Confidences" [2] in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military is the precious conceptual crystallization formed by the Party’s unremitting pursuit of a Chinese-path to military strengthening.
Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military was formed and developed in the practice of exploring the Chinese-path to military strengthening in the New Era, condensing the practical experience and collective wisdom of the Party and the people.
It inherits the precious experience of the Party’s unremitting pursuit of a Chinese-path to military strengthening. Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military develops through inheritance, condensing the experience and wisdom of generations of Chinese Communists. It inherits the basic principles of ideological Party building and political military building [3], forming the strategy for political military building in the New Era. It inherits the goal of "building our military into a powerful, modernized, and regularized revolutionary military" [4] and proposes the Party's goal of strengthening the military in the New Era. It inherits the thinking on active defense while emphasizing proactivity; it inherits the Chinese-path of elite troops [5] while exploring the Chinese-path to military strengthening, continuously carrying forward and developing the essence of the Party’s leadership in building a powerful people's military.
It condenses the latest achievements of the Chinese-path to military strengthening in the New Era. From the moment Chairman Xi Jinping proposed the "Chinese Dream" and the "Dream of a Strong Military," he creatively revealed and reflected the essence and laws of the Chinese-path to military strengthening. From reflecting on and answering "what the military should look like" to proposing the Party's goal of strengthening the military in the New Era; from focusing on advancing with the times by innovating strategic military guidance to leading the formulation of military strategic guidelines for the New Era; from focusing on eliminating deep-seated problems and resolving major issues concerning the Party’s ideological and political construction of the military to establishing the strategy for political military building in the New Era, the theoretical achievements of Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military have been continuously enriched.
Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military is the fundamental follow-through and program of action for accelerating the modernization of national defense and the armed forces and building a world-class military in all respects.
Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military has drawn a grand blueprint and provided a practical path for accelerating the modernization of national defense and the armed forces and building a world-class military in all respects, demonstrating the great power of truth in practice.
It has drawn a grand blueprint for building a world-class military in all respects. The Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, based on a new historical coordinate, has established the Party's goal of strengthening the military in the New Era. It has made strategic plans for comprehensively promoting the modernization of national defense and the armed forces, proposing a new "three-step" strategy: "to achieve the centenary goal of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army by 2027, to basically realize the modernization of national defense and the armed forces by 2035, and to fully build the people's military into a world-class military by the middle of this century." These strategic arrangements align with the strategic arrangements for comprehensively building a modern socialist terminal power, highlighting the strategic consideration of supporting a strong nation with a strong military.
It provides a practical path for realizing the modernization of the military through the Chinese-path. Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military clarifies that the Party’s absolute leadership over the military is the foundation of the people's military and the soul of a strong military. It has planned the strategic layout for strengthening and flourishing the military and the "Four Modernizations," [6] and proposed the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization. This provides a clear roadmap, construction plan, timetable, and task book for taking the Chinese-path to military strengthening. As long as the officers and soldiers of the entire military stay focused on the goal of strengthening the military and forge ahead with fortitude [7], the strategic goals will surely be achieved as scheduled.
Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military is, in essence, the Party's military thought in the New Era.
Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military is permeated with our Party’s nature, purpose, and original aspiration and founding mission. It is filled with the sentiment of bearing arms for the people and fighting for the people, vividly reflecting the Marxist standpoint, viewpoint, and method regarding the masses in the field of national defense and military construction.
It inherits the basic viewpoints and methods of the Party’s military thought. It consistently examines war and military issues using the basic principles of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, persistently maintaining the Marxist view of war. It consistently adheres to the Party's absolute leadership over the people's military and the Party’s principles for building the military. It consistently emphasizes maintaining the traditional character of the "Old Red Army" [8] and preserving the military’s bloodline and genes. It consistently seeks truth from facts and emancipates the mind, persisting in the integration of the basic principles of Marxism with China’s specific realities. It consistently combines Marxist military theory with excellent traditional Chinese military culture, persisting in the soul and essence of Chinese culture.
It has enriched the theoretical system of the Party's military thought. By proposing the Party’s goal of strengthening the military in the New Era, deploying the new "three-step" strategy for modernization, endowing active defense with new connotations of the era, researching and mastering the characteristics and laws of informatized and intelligentized warfare, developing thoughts on political military building and Party building in the military, comprehensively strengthening military governance, consolidating and improving the integrated national strategic system and capability, constructing a modernized national defense mobilization system, and building strong and stable modern border, sea, and air defenses, it has raised our Party's understanding of national defense and military construction, preparations for military struggle, and the laws of war guidance to a new height.
Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military has opened up a new realm for the development of contemporary Chinese Marxist military theory and military practice.
Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military integrates the basic principles of Marxism with the practice of strengthening and flourishing the military in the New Era, answering the questions of the times and the "questions of strengthening the military." [9] It represents a new leap in the Sinicization and modernization of Marxist military theory.
It provides "this great cognitive tool" of the contemporary Chinese Marxist military outlook and methodology. Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military persists in using Marxism to examine contemporary Chinese military issues, elaborating in detail on major relationships such as military and politics, war and peace, stabilizing the situation and shaping momentum, deterrence and actual combat, and man and weapons. It proposes the "Five Persistences," [10] providing a cognitive tool for strengthening the military and winning in the New Era. By applying this tool to continuously resolve various contradictions and problems in the practice of strengthening the military, it ensures that the direction is always correct, strategies are appropriate, and responses are effective.
It provides a practical standard for the unity of knowledge and action [11] and for flourishing the military through hard work. Xi Jinping’s Thinking on Strengthening the Military consistently pursues truth from facts, emphasizing the unity of knowledge and action and flourishing the military through practical work. Persisting in the standard of practice, it requires the entire military to "firmly establish combat effectiveness as the sole and fundamental standard," establishing a military practice standard unified with the standard of practice for testing truth and the value standard of the people's interests. Persisting in the guidance of practice, it emphasizes that "leaders should take the lead and set an example" and "start with me, start with the Central Military Commission." Persisting in a problem-oriented approach, it promotes a culture of investigation and research, viewing the implementation of tasks from the height of "upholding politics." [12]