Chinese President Xi Jinping has warned of instability and uncertainty in the national security situation and urged the entire armed forces to be ready at all times to safeguard the country.

Xi noted that 2021 was the first year of a three-step modernization drive involving national defense and the military forces. He stressed the need to strengthen responsibilities and carry out the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic and other tasks with diligence, so as to ensure a good start for the nation’s new five-year plan.

This year also marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of China’s Communist Party, as well as the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan, he said at an annual military meeting on Tuesday in Beijing.

Xi was speaking in his capacity as chairperson of the Central Military Commission at a plenary meeting of the delegation of the People’s Liberation Army and People’s Armed Police Force during the fourth session of the 13th National People’s Congress. The Chinese president is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China.

In his speech, Xi emphasized that the armed forces must be prepared to fight by stepping up efforts to build high-caliber strategic deterrence and joint operation systems. All yearly plans for the construction of the military had to be realized as soon as possible, he said.

Intensified efforts and more concrete measures to develop innovation-driven military strategies were needed, he said.

The armed forces must keep up with progress in science and technology, improve innovation in national defense and put all its resources to better use, he said. They also needed to follow through planned reforms for national defense and the military.

The central government and national agencies, local party committees at all levels and local governments were to earnestly implement deployment requirements laid out by the party and the state, so as to execute national defense duties well, Xi added.

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