Historical Missions of the PLA in the New Stage in the New Century

It is a general summary of the historical mission undertaken by the Chinese People's Liberation Army in the new stage of the 21st century. At the end of 2004, Hu Jintao proposed at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission: The content of the historical mission is: the army should provide important strength guarantee for the Party to consolidate its ruling position, provide strong security for the important strategic opportunity period of maintaining national development, provide strong strategic support for the maintenance of national interests, and play an important role in safeguarding world peace and promoting common development, referred to as “three provisions, one role to play”. The historical mission of the army has always been closely linked to that of the Party and to national security and development interests. In November 1927, when the Red Army captured Chaling County, Mao Zedong summarized the experience of this battle, and stipulated three main tasks for the troops: fightbattles, raise fundsand, do mass work. In 1929, Mao Zedong further clarified the “three major tasks” of the “battle team, task force team, and the production team” of the People's Army at the Gutian Conference. This is the earliest statement about the historical mission of the People's Army.

In the early 1980s, Deng Xiaoping pointed out in his speech at the end of a major military exercise in North China that our army is a strong pillar of the people's democratic dictatorship and shoulders the glorious mission of defending the socialist motherland and the construction of the four modernizations.

This wasan extension and development of the “three major tasks”. In 1992, Jiang Zemin emphasized in the Report of the 14th CPC National Congress that the army should better shoulder the sacred mission of defending the sovereignty of national territories, territorial airspace and territorial seas as well as maritime rights and interests, and safeguarding the unity and security of the motherland, further elaborating the historical mission of the army. At the end of 2004, Hu Jintao comprehensively analyzed the changes in historical conditions, national security situation, and historical position of the army, focused on the realization of the Party’s three major historical tasks, and safeguarding the fundamental interests of the country and the nation, and proposed the historical mission of the people's army in the new stage of the new century at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission, i.e., “three provisions, one role to play”. “Providing important strength guarantee for the Party to consolidate its ruling position” means that the army is the people's army under the Party's absolute leadership, shoulders the sacred mission of and plays an important role in consolidating the Party's ruling position, ensuring that the socialist red mountains and rivers will never change color, and safeguarding the fundamental interests of the people.

Therefore, it is important to adhere to the fundamental principles and systems of the Party’s absolute leadership over the army, strengthen the revolutionization, modernization and regularization of the army as an important strategic task of the Party’s ruling, and ensure that the army always serves as the backbone of the Party’s ruling position. “Providing strong security for the important strategic opportunity period of maintaining national development” means that to maintain and make good use of the strategic opportunity period, a strong army is required to serve as the strong backing for national sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity. The army shall put national sovereignty and security in the first place, perform the sacred mission of maintaining national sovereignty, unity and stability, and make due contributions to creating a long-term security environment that is conducive to building a well-off society in an all-around way and accelerating socialist modernization. "Providing strong strategic support for the maintenance of national interests" means that the army shall not only pay attention to and safeguard national survival interests, but also pay attention to and safeguard national development interests; not only deal with traditional security threats, but also deal with non-traditional security threats; not only pay attention to and safeguard the security of national territories, territorial seas and territorial airspace, but also pay attention to and safeguard the national security of oceans, space, cyber electromagnetic space and other aspects.

“Playing an important role in safeguarding world peace and promoting common development” means that strong military strength is required as a strong backing for our country to achieve peaceful development and maintain world peace and promote common development. The Chinese army has always been a firm force in safeguarding world peace. Only by vigorously strengthening army building, and improving the ability to respond to crises, maintain peace, contain wars, and win wars on the basis of continuous economic development, can we better perform our duties of safeguarding national security, national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and play a positive role in safeguarding world peace. The historical mission of “three provisions, one role to play” has further broadened the horizons of security strategy and military strategy, and further expanded the functional tasks of the army. This historical mission requires the army to unify safeguarding national security interests with safeguarding national development interests, and to combine safeguarding national fundamental interests with safeguarding world peace; requires developing the army into a military power that is commensurate with China's international status, and adaptable to national security and development interests; requires the army to further improve the standard of military struggle preparations, with the ability to respond to multiple security threats, and complete diverse military missions, respond to crises and contain wars to the greatest extent, and take the initiative, control the situation and win the war once a war occurs; requires to further enrich the guiding principles for the employment of military power, so that the employment of military power consciously follows the country ’s overall strategy, closely integrates with political, diplomatic, cultural, and legal struggles, and unifies war operations, non-war operations, responding to practical security threats and preventing potential security threats.