Be ready to fight and win wars: Chinese President Xi Jinping tells military

TIL Desk/World/Beijing/ President Xi Jinping has said that China’s national security is facing increased instability and ordered the PLA to devote all its energies to enhancing capability and maintaining combat readiness to fight and win wars as he took charge of the military for a record third five-year term.

Xi, 69, has been reappointed as the General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) and head of the Central Military Commission (CMC) — the overall high command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for an unprecedented third five-year term by the party’s once-in-a-five-year Congress last month.

 Holding the three powerful posts of the head of the party, the military, and the Presidency, Xi is the only leader besides the party founder Mao Zedong to continue in power after completing 10-year tenure, while all his predecessors retired.   On Tuesday, Xi inspected the joint operations command centre of the CMC here which provides vital support to the strategic command of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC.

Upon arriving at the command centre, the Chinese leader was given a briefing, the official media reported. In his first address to the two million-strong military — the largest in the world — as he kicked off his third term as head of the CMC, Xi said the world is undergoing more profound changes unseen in a century and stressed that China’s national security is facing increased instability and uncertainty, and its military tasks remain arduous.