Full Text: China´s National Defense in 2006

Supporting the Government and Loving the People

The PLA attaches great importance to mass work, taking supporting the government and loving the people as its major thrust. The political organs of the four general headquarters/departments and the military area commands, the Navy, Air Force and Second Artillery Force all have offices for mass work. The political organs of corps, divisions (brigades) and regiments also have special officers in charge of such work. These offices and officers are responsible for maintaining contacts and coordination with governments at all levels. Education in supporting the government and loving the people is conducted PLA-wide. The PLA participates in national economic development, emergency rescue and disaster relief, and public welfare activities.

In the past two years, the engineering troops of the Army, Navy and Air Force have taken part in more than 430 key construction projects for transportation, hydropower, communication and energy infrastructure. The PLA has assisted in building new socialist villages in the countryside, and provided regular assistance to poor farmers in more than 19,000 villages. It has helped build over 48,000 small public projects such as water-saving irrigation projects, drinking water projects for both people and livestock, roads, and hydropower projects, bringing immediate benefits to nearly 800,000 people. In addition, it has helped build or enlarge211 primary and secondary schools, enabling 142,000 school dropouts to return to class. PLA troops stationed in China's western region have taken part in such ecological engineering projects as the construction of shelterbelts and the improvement of small drainage areas. They have planted 210 million trees and sown grass on more than 13 million sq m of land. PLA hospitals have established regular assistance relations with more than 400 county or township hospitals in the western region. They have helped train key members of the medical staff, made rounds of visits offering free medical consultation and treatment, and donated medical equipment and medicine. The PLA and PAPF have dispatched over 340,000 troops to take part in more than 2,800 emergency rescue and disaster-relief operations, involving more than 40,000 vehicles, flown more than 2,000 sorties (including the use of helicopters), evacuated over 3.4 million people and prevented economic losses of several billion yuan. At the end of 2006, the PLA donated 230 million yuan and over 930,000 cotton-padded clothes and quilts to disaster- and poverty-stricken areas.

In June 2005, the State Council and the CMC promulgated the Regulations on Participation of the PLA in Emergency Rescue and Disaster Relief, prescribing the PLA's main tasks, coordination with local people's governments, limits of authority and procedures for employing troops, joint command with local authorities, preparations and readiness, financial and material support, etc., for such operations.