Outside View: Know the enemy and know yourself, newspaper suggests

In a really astounding conclusion reached at a symposium on innovation of military management, all participants viewed the combat effectiveness of PLA troops today is nagged by "two cannot suits" on modernization level and military capability respectively, says an article in Defense News.

While there is no doubt that China's military capabilities have increased significantly over the past decade and the PLA intends to further improve its combat effectiveness, a group of midlevel or senior PLA officers have agreed that the Chinese armed forces are not ready to win a local war under "information-saturated conditions" and that it cannot accomplish the Army's historical missions, the article said.

Such conclusions have also been applied specifically to the PLA's command structure, personnel quality, training, logistics and technology levels. Measures for these are consistent with the three-step development strategy defined in the 2006 Chinese White Paper on National Defense to build an "information-saturated armed forces capable of winning information-saturated wars by the mid-21st century," with milestones in 2010 and 2020, the news said.