The Chinese military will continue to speed up the process of informationalization, says a white paper issued by the Information Office of the State Council on Monday.

According to the white paper on China's national defense in 2004, the Chinese military, or the People's Liberation Army (PLA), takes informationalization as its orientation and strategic focus.

"Informationalized war is expected to become the main warfare for this century and our army building efforts must mainly be targeted at stepping up informationalization," said Fu Yansong, a military expert who participated in the drafting of the white paper, told Xinhua during an exclusive interview.

According to the white paper, China has reaped fruitful results to that effect after a 20-plus-year effort and has completed a series of key projects to build military information systems and made great progress in building information infrastructure.

As a result, command means have been substantially improved at all levels of headquarters and combat troops, computers and other IT equipment gradually introduced into routine operations and the ability to provide operational information support greatly enhanced while more and more IT elements have been incorporated into main battle weapon systems.

In the new stage of the 21st century, the PLA strives to comprehensively push forward informationalization with military information systems and informationalized main battle weapon systems as the mainstay and with military informationalization infrastructure development supported and guaranteed.

In its drive for informationalization, the PLA adheres to the criterion of combat efficiency and the direction of an integrated development, and persists in taking informationalization as the leading force while advancing mechanization and informationalization simultaneously.

Going with the tide of the world's military development and moving along the direction of informationalization in the process of modernization, the PLA shall gradually achieve the transition from mechanization and semi-mechanization to informationalization, says the white paper.

"While the military is trying to complete the task of military mechanization, it also is facing another big challenge of informationalization," said Fu, suggesting that the military advance the development of informationalization and mechanization in an integrated way.