Chairman of the Central Military Commission Jiang Zemin recently delivered a speech at the plenary meeting of the PLA delegation to the 10th National People's Congress. In his speech, Jiang pointed out that the Chinese army should push forward the military changes with Chinese characteristics in response to the rapid development of modern science and technology as well as new military changes in the world. Jiang called on the army to speed up various reforms and army buildings so as to enhance the combat effectiveness of the army.

The new military innovation starting from the 1990's mainly includes: the military technological innovation based on information technology; the armament innovation featuring wide adoption of high and new technology in upgrading of weaponry and equipment; the theoretical innovation focusing on innovation of military theory; and the military structural innovation centered on cutting down the size of the armed forces and optimizing internal structure.

The progress of new military innovation has turned the modern warfare into a systematic confrontation and contest of high-tech weaponry and armament.　　

A harmonious integration of mechanization and IT application would be an important growing point for combat effectiveness under high-tech conditions.

The Chinese army, therefore, while pushing forward the military changes with Chinese characteristics, should speed up IT application before it really finishes mechanization. If Chinese army drops IT development to focus solely on mechanization, it would be left behind again in terms of the times and technology.

The development of world military and local war has demonstrated that war is a flowing and transforming process of materials, energy and information, while the flowing of materials and energy is controlled by information technology.

Today the information technology has permeated into almost every aspect of the military field, making armament, combat command and logistics support more and more dependent on information and information system.

Therefore, in order to increase the combat effectiveness, IT application should be given priority in army building.

In addition, in accordance with the systematic process of IT application to prop up the mechanization, great amount of relevant human resources should also be cultivated to meet the requirement.

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