PLA Daily, the voice of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), published two articles on Tuesday calling on the country's military personnel to develop "correct values" so as to strengthen the fighting capabilities of the armed forces.
In the articles, the authors highlighted the call of "Be loyal to the Party, serve the people, and be brave and good at fighting," by President Hu Jintao, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), concurrently.
The army's ideological work should be based on the socialist kernel value highlighted at the October 17th Party Congress, says an article by Fan Xiaojun.
The socialist kernel value should be combined with the historic mission of the army, Fan says. He calls for educating servicemen with innovative and advanced means, which are modern and easy to be accepted and appreciated by soldiers and officers alike.
As China's society is in a transition period, military personnel face the same problems and need to re-study the issue of value. He urges leading officers to study the issue of fighting corruption.
The other article gives a full explanation of Hu's instruction. It stresses these are fundamental principles for the army to follow forever.
China's armed forces include the 2.3 million member PLA and the one million strong People's Armed Police (PAP).
Since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, Chinese troops have fought in the Korean War (1950-53) and several brief border wars with some neighboring countries.
In peacetime, armed forces play a big part in disaster relief and other nonmilitary activities. In the current relief activities in snow-hit areas, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and officers have been deployed. Military airplanes and helicopters have transported large amounts of relief goods to victims.
Source: XinhuaAuthor:China Military Time:2008-05-24 From:china daily