Asien — China’s National Defense in 2008

Chi­na is accel­er­at­ing reform and inno­va­tion in its defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try, pro­mot­ing strate­gic and spe­cial­iza­tion-ori­ent­ed restruc­tur­ing of defense indus­try enter­pris­es, enhanc­ing the capa­bil­i­ties of inde­pen­dent inno­va­tion in the R&D of weapon­ry and equip­ment, and striv­ing to estab­lish a new sys­tem of defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try which caters to both mil­i­tary and civil­ian needs, and chan­nels mil­i­tary poten­tial to civil­ian use. 

Pro­mot­ing Inno­va­tion in Struc­tures and Mech­a­nisms
To meet the needs of weapon­ry and equip­ment devel­op­ment, as well as devel­op­ment of the social­ist mar­ket econ­o­my, Chi­na is con­stant­ly reform­ing its man­age­ment sys­tem of defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try. Accord­ing to the Plan for Restruc­tur­ing the State Coun­cil passed by the First Ses­sion of the Eleventh Nation­al People’s Con­gress in 2008, the Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Indus­try Com­mis­sion for Nation­al Defense of the People’s Repub­lic of Chi­na has been super­seded by the State Admin­is­tra­tion of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Indus­try for Nation­al Defense. 

In 2007, the State Coun­cil approved Some Opin­ions on Deep­en­ing the Reform of the Invest­ment Sys­tem of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Indus­try for Nation­al Defense, which explic­it­ly pro­pos­es a new invest­ment sys­tem fea­tur­ing effec­tive gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tion and con­trol, par­tic­i­pa­tion of social cap­i­tal, stan­dard­ized inter­me­di­ary ser­vices, vig­or­ous super­vi­sion and man­age­ment, and pos­i­tive mil­i­tary-civil­ian inter­ac­tion. As a result, an open devel­op­ment pat­tern for defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try is tak­ing shape. The invest­ment field has been fur­ther broad­ened, and invest­ment struc­ture fur­ther opti­mized. Ways of invest­ment have been diver­si­fied to include not only direct invest­ment, but also injec­tion of cap­i­tal and invest­ment subsidies. 

Chi­na is speed­ing up the trans­for­ma­tion of the struc­tures and mech­a­nisms of the defense indus­try enter­pris­es, and is in the ini­tial stage of estab­lish­ing a new sys­tem of defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try that fea­tures a small core, exten­sive coop­er­a­tion and a large mil­i­tary poten­tial reserve among civil­ians. Struc­tur­al con­tra­dic­tions in defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try have been grad­u­al­ly and fun­da­men­tal­ly solved through strate­gic restruc­tur­ing and the stream­lin­ing of the main body of the defense indus­try. Chi­na is steadi­ly pro­mot­ing the trans­for­ma­tion of defense indus­try enter­pris­es into joint-stock enter­pris­es, active­ly explor­ing approach­es to diver­si­fy­ing the struc­ture of prop­er­ty rights, giv­ing pri­or­i­ty on help­ing qual­i­fied com­pet­i­tive enter­pris­es to be reor­ga­nized and list­ed on the stock mar­ket, and encour­ag­ing spe­cial­iza­tion-ori­ent­ed restruc­tur­ing and the inte­gra­tion of the efforts of enter­pris­es, uni­ver­si­ties and research insti­tutes. Rel­e­vant laws and reg­u­la­tions have been improved to stan­dard­ize and super­vise the process of reor­ga­niz­ing the defense indus­try enter­pris­es and get­ting them list­ed on the stock market. 

Improv­ing the Weapon­ry and Equip­ment Research and Pro­duc­tion Sys­tem
Estab­lish­ing a sound licens­ing sys­tem for weapon­ry and equip­ment research and pro­duc­tion. In accor­dance with the Imple­men­ta­tion Mea­sures for Weapon­ry and Equip­ment Research and Pro­duc­tion Licens­ing pro­mul­gat­ed in May 2005, the defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try has adopt­ed a licens­ing sys­tem for weapon­ry and equip­ment research and pro­duc­tion fea­tur­ing man­age­ment of cat­e­go­riza­tion. While main­tain­ing state con­trol over weapon­ry and equip­ment research and pro­duc­tion, the doc­u­ment allows the non-pub­lic sec­tor to enter this field and com­pete for research and pro­duc­tion projects. In March 2008 the State Coun­cil and the CMC issued the Reg­u­la­tions on the Licens­ing Admin­is­tra­tion of Weapon­ry and Equip­ment Research and Pro­duc­tion, fur­ther improv­ing the system. 

Enhanc­ing the basic capa­bil­i­ties of weapon­ry and equip­ment research and pro­duc­tion. Defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try are striv­ing to enhance the infor­ma­tion­iza­tion of weapon­ry and equip­ment design and devel­op­ment, and to ren­der prod­uct design more dig­i­tal­ized, mod­u­lar­ized, stan­dard­ized and reli­able. It has built dig­i­tal sim­u­la­tion and hard­ware-in-the-loop (HIL) sim­u­la­tion facil­i­ties and a num­ber of impor­tant advanced exper­i­men­ta­tion and demon­stra­tion facil­i­ties, which has result­ed in a high­er design capa­bil­i­ty and R&D suc­cess rate. 

This sec­tor has also increased final assem­bly and inte­gra­tion capa­bil­i­ties, and a num­ber of key enter­pris­es have real­ized sys­tems inte­gra­tion of assem­bly, exper­i­men­ta­tion and test­ing. This has sub­stan­tial­ly raised core man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ties by giv­ing pri­or­i­ty to resolv­ing pro­cess­ing and tech­ni­cal issues in com­plex parts pro­cess­ing, pre­ci­sion man­u­fac­tur­ing and spe­cial weld­ing. In addi­tion, a num­ber of large-scale basic exper­i­men­ta­tion facil­i­ties serv­ing the entire indus­try have been con­struct­ed, as well as spe­cial­ized test­ing and exper­i­men­ta­tion cen­ters for reli­a­bil­i­ty test­ing and burn-in screen­ing of com­po­nents and parts, and improved mea­sures, stan­dards and oth­er basic sup­port con­di­tions for defense indus­tries have been put in place. With the improve­ment of basic capa­bil­i­ties, a leapfrog­ging devel­op­ment in the abil­i­ty to pro­vide weapon­ry and equip­ment has been achieved. 

Build­ing a dynam­ic inno­va­tion sys­tem for defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try. The gov­ern­ment has tak­en the lead to cre­ate a favor­able envi­ron­ment for inno­va­tion and guide inno­va­tion activ­i­ties through poli­cies and invest­ments. With the research insti­tutes and enter­pris­es of the defense indus­try as the back­bone and with insti­tutes for basic research and insti­tu­tions of high­er learn­ing as a vital new force, Chi­na is giv­ing full play to the advan­tages of inte­grat­ing enter­pris­es, uni­ver­si­ties and research insti­tutes, and mak­ing efforts to increase its capa­bil­i­ty for inde­pen­dent inno­va­tion in defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try. To con­sol­i­date the foun­da­tion of human resources for the inno­v­a­tive devel­op­ment of defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try, both the nation­al major projects of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy and impor­tant projects for defense sci­en­tif­ic research and weapon­ry and equip­ment R&D have been tak­en as plat­forms to iden­ti­fy, cul­ti­vate, employ and attract tal­ent­ed people. 

Enhanc­ing Coop­er­a­tion with Oth­er Coun­tries
Fol­low­ing the prin­ci­ples of mutu­al ben­e­fit and com­mon devel­op­ment, Chi­na is con­duct­ing coop­er­a­tion with for­eign coun­tries in defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try. It empha­sizes exchanges and coop­er­a­tion with devel­oped coun­tries in defense indus­try tech­nol­o­gy to draw on their expe­ri­ence in tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment and man­age­ment. It enhances mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial coop­er­a­tion with devel­op­ing coun­tries, and engages in joint R&D and pro­duc­tion in major coop­er­a­tive projects, in accor­dance with the nation­al con­di­tions and spe­cif­ic require­ments of the part­ners. On the export of mil­i­tary items, it adheres to the fol­low­ing prin­ci­ples: It should only serve the pur­pose of help­ing the recip­i­ent state enhance its capa­bil­i­ty for legit­i­mate self-defense; it must not impair peace, secu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty of the rel­e­vant region or the world as a whole; and it must not be used to inter­fere in the recip­i­ent state’s inter­nal affairs. 

China’s defense-relat­ed sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try active­ly con­duct coop­er­a­tion with oth­er coun­tries in the field of hi-tech indus­tries, com­bin­ing mil­i­tary and civil­ian needs, and makes great efforts to devel­op hi-tech civil­ian prod­ucts with high added val­ue. Major break­throughs have been made in devel­op­ing the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket for space prod­ucts. Chi­na has export­ed its first satel­lite; and the earth resources satel­lite project with Brazil has played an impor­tant role in both coun­tries’ eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. Chi­na has sig­nif­i­cant­ly enhanced its coop­er­a­tion with oth­er coun­tries in avi­a­tion prod­ucts and tech­nolo­gies, and made new head­way in devel­op­ing the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket for civ­il air­craft. China’s ship­build­ing indus­try has export­ed prod­ucts for civ­il use in series and batch­es, fur­ther increas­ing its share in the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket for such products. 

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