Foreign Military Attaches Briefed on PLA's Political Work

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, October 11, 2002

Foreign Military Attaches Briefed on PLA's Political Work

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Fifty-eight military attaches and assistant military attaches from more than 50 countries based in Beijing attended a briefing on the political work of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) during the new historical period Wednesday in Beijing.

It is the first time that the Foreign Affairs Office of China'sDefense Ministry has held such an event to brief foreign military attaches on the PLA's political work.

Zhang Lei, a general office researcher of the PLA General Political Department, gave the foreign military attaches an account on the history, structure and main contents of the PLA's political work, and on the functions of the PLA General Political Department. He also answered questions from the attaches.

The PLA of China promotes reform in human resources and attaches primary importance to high-level academic education, said the General Political Department of the PLA.

Zhang Lei said one of the fundamental tasks of the political work of the PLA in these new times is to assist with reform and opening-up.

Senior officials from the General Political Department reviewed the development of PLA political work and its achievements for the foreign military attaches.

Zhang said an important task of the PLA is to select, cultivate and assign cadres "for the purpose of setting up a team of young cadres with higher learning and professional knowledge and bringing up a great number of talented people to meet the requirements of modern wars particularly under the new high-tech conditions.''

Over the past two years the number of military colleges and institutions authorized to award doctoral degrees has increased from 139 to 272, while that of master's degrees has rocketed from 472 to 746. The degrees cover 11 majors including military science, engineering and medical science.

There are now more than 26,000 doctors and masters in military science, and more than 100 officers with doctoral degrees or master degrees have taken leading positions at the regimental and divisional levels, according to a source with the General Political Department.

Meanwhile, in order to strengthen the armed forces by relying on science and technology, the military has signed agreements on education with more than 50 civilian colleges and institutions of higher learning, including Tsinghua and Peking universities.

In recent years, the PLA also established psychological education throughout the ranks, based on the political departments at the regimental and brigade levels.

Such measures have shown great promise in dealing with difficulties in daily military training, Zhang said.

In addition to this briefing, several others have been held since last year. They covered various topics such as China's stance on arms control and Chinese military housing reform.

These are part of the efforts by the Chinese military to open its doors to the international community and to share information on the development of the PLA, said a spokesman for the foreign affairs office of the Defence Ministry.

"We're ready to set up more exchanges between the PLA and foreign peoples and their armed forces,'' said the spokesman.

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