China commits to winning IT-based warfare

The Chinese president has vowed to accelerate the pace of military modernisation in a speech made to mark the 17th Communist Party of China Congress on 15 October in Beijing.
In the speech, which was published on the Chinese government's website on 16 October, Hu Jintao said: "We must implement the military strategy for the new period, accelerate the revolution in military affairs with Chinese characteristics, ensure military preparedness and enhance the military's capability to respond to various security threats and accomplish diverse military tasks."
He added: "Bearing in mind the overall strategic interests of national security and development, we must take both economic development and national defence into consideration and make our country prosperous and our armed forces powerful."
Hu, who is also chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that in order to "win IT-based warfare", China will "accelerate the composite development of mechanisation and computerisation, carry out military training under IT-based conditions, intensify our efforts to train a new type of high-calibre military personnel in large numbers and change the mode of generating combat capabilities".
The reference to winning IT-based warfare is a key part of the Chinese government's most recent defence White Paper, issued in December 2006, which stated that the country was committed to military modernisation over three eras, leading to the development of what Beijing calls 'informationised' armed forces, or what the West refers to as network-centric forces.
The White Paper states: "China pursues a three-step development strategy in modernising its national defence and armed forces, in accordance with the state's overall plan to realise modernisation. The first step is to lay a solid foundation by 2010, the second is to make major progress around 2020 and the third is to basically reach the strategic goal of building informationised armed forces and being capable of winning informationised wars by the mid-21st century."

Jon Grevatt Jane's Industry Reporter