Full coverage: 2017 NPC & CPPCC Sessions

By Professor Li Daguang, National Defense University, cartoon drawing by Liao Tingting

On March 12, Chinese President Xi Jinping joined a panel discussion with lawmakers from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature.

Xi, also the Party chief and the chairman of the Central Military Commission, called for deepening military-civilian integration, while highlighting sci-tech innovation as the key to military upgrades. He also emphasized enhanced top-level design and strategic planning in promoting military-civilian integration.

Innovation is the soul of military progress, which is inevitable for a nation's path of peaceful development. Focusing on science and technology for upgrading the army has been Xi's paramount concern.

During the two sessions in 2016, Xi highlighted the concept of innovation and development, and urged the military to implement the innovation-driven development strategy as a prominent task. During the ongoing two sessions, Xi pointed out there exist good conditions to promote better and faster army-civilian sci-tech integration.

Xi said civil technologies should better serve military purposes, and defense technologies should be adapted and applied well for civil use. The army should take advantage of China's achievements in economic & social development and sci-tech progress to help modernize its weapons and equipment, he said.

His speeches serve as a guide for better implementing the national innovation-driven development strategy and army-civilian integration development strategy. Efforts to carry out army-civilian collaborative innovation, and integrate basic sci-tech elements for military and civilians would bring out the best for building a more prosperous country and stronger armed forces.

(The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Panview or CCTV.com)

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