Military experts: PLA equipment achieves 'China-created'

The past decade is a golden period for the construction and development of the equipment of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). On the eve of the National Day which falls on October 1 of 2012, the reporters from the PLA Daily held a special interview with Chen Zhou, director of the National Defense Policy Research Center of the Academy of Military Sciences (AMS) of the PLA and chief of the expert panel on the drafting of white papers on China's national defense, on the topic of construction and development of the PLA's equipment in the past ten years.

With regard to netizens' comments that the construction of the PLA's weaponry and equipment has achieved "China created", Chen Zhou responded that the construction of the PLA’s weaponry and equipment has achieved a historic leap from import for imitation to independent development, and to independent innovation after over 60 years of hard struggle and practice since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Chen Zhou said that hundreds of pieces of advanced equipment in over 70 categories exhibited respectively in the National Day parade held in Beijing and numerous major commemorations of various services and arms of the PLA from 2009 to 2012 presented a concentrated demonstration of the latest achievements in the compound development of mechanization and informatization of the PLA's weaponry and equipment. New-type main combat equipment, electronic information equipment and support equipment have achieved coordinated development and the new-generation information-based weaponry and equipment platform has become a new growth point of the combat effectiveness of the PLA.

Chen Zhou added that with a vast land territory and sea area, China is confronted with multiple traditional and non-traditional security challenges, and therefore it is justified to speed up the modernization construction of the PLA's weaponry and equipment to uphold China's national security. The fundamental purpose of modernizing the Chinese military is to establish a military force compatible with national security and development interests, and to resolutely safeguard China's sovereignty, security, territorial integrity and interests of national development.

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