Asien — China’s National Defense in 2008

Pref­ace
The year 2008 was an extra­or­di­nary one in the his­to­ry of the People’s Repub­lic of Chi­na (PRC). In that year Chi­na over­came a dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake, with the epi­cen­ter in Wenchuan Coun­ty, Sichuan Province; suc­cess­ful­ly host­ed the 29th Olympic Games and Par­a­lympics in Bei­jing; and greet­ed the 30th anniver­sary of the adop­tion of reform and open­ing-up policies. 

His­toric changes have tak­en place in the rela­tions between con­tem­po­rary Chi­na and the rest of the world. The Chi­nese econ­o­my has become an impor­tant part of the world econ­o­my, Chi­na has become an impor­tant mem­ber of the inter­na­tion­al sys­tem, and the future and des­tiny of Chi­na have been increas­ing­ly close­ly con­nect­ed with the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Chi­na can­not devel­op in iso­la­tion from the rest of the world, nor can the world enjoy pros­per­i­ty and sta­bil­i­ty with­out China. 

Start­ing from this new his­tor­i­cal turn­ing point, Chi­na is unswerv­ing­ly tak­ing the road of peace­ful devel­op­ment, unswerv­ing­ly car­ry­ing out its poli­cies of reform and open­ing-up and social­ist mod­ern­iza­tion, unswerv­ing­ly pur­su­ing an inde­pen­dent for­eign pol­i­cy of peace and a nation­al defense pol­i­cy sole­ly aimed at pro­tect­ing its ter­ri­to­ry and peo­ple, and endeav­or­ing to build, togeth­er with oth­er coun­tries, a har­mo­nious world of endur­ing peace and com­mon prosperity. 

Chi­na adheres to tak­ing the Sci­en­tif­ic Out­look on Devel­op­ment as an impor­tant guid­ing prin­ci­ple for nation­al defense and armed forces build­ing; is active­ly adapt­ing itself to new trends in world mil­i­tary devel­op­ment, tak­ing it as its fun­da­men­tal pur­pose to safe­guard nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, secu­ri­ty and devel­op­ment, tak­ing reform and inno­va­tion as its fun­da­men­tal dri­ving force, and advanc­ing the mod­ern­iza­tion of its nation­al defense and armed forces from a high­er start­ing point. 

Source:
Infor­ma­tion Office of the State Coun­cil of the People’s Repub­lic of China