Protect period of strategic opportunity

Just before the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army, top leader Xi Jinping told the parading troops on July 30 at the military training base in Zhurihe in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region that the PLA had to build itself into a world-class elite force that can fight and win. The question is - how can it accomplish that?

Excellence of weaponry is no longer a big issue for the PLA. Thanks to decades of strenuous efforts and supported by the robust Chinese economy, the Chinese defense industry has cleared the technological bottleneck and the arms embargo of the West to produce some of the most advanced weapons in the world. When a trio of Chinese destroyers passed through the Strait of Dover for a drill with the Russian Navy in July, one British netizen remarked how "Drake and Nelson must be turning in their graves" to see the Chinese destroyers looking so modern and effective, unlike "our tired old" HMS Richmond, the frigate that monitored the Chinese ships.

However, the PLA has not been war-tested in nearly four decades. Since 1979, China has focused on economic development, and it considers the first 20 years of the 21st century a "period of strategic opportunity" that should be maintained with minimal disturbance. China's patience, resilience and restraint over such incidents as the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in former Yugoslavia, which killed three Chinese, and the collision between a Chinese fighter jet and a US surveillance plane in which the Chinese pilot died, have paid off. Today, China wears many hats, such as being the largest trading nation, the biggest trading partner of more than 120 countries and, above all, the second-largest economy in the world.