2. China's national defense characteristics

China has taken the initiative to adapt itself to the new trend of world military development, and is guided by the Scientific Outlook on Development, which is the guiding principle for China's national defense and army building. In fact, this contains our basic choice for building a national defense with Chinese characteristics, that is, the development of China's national strength that is compatible with our economic development.

Our nuclear policy has been consistent and has never changed.

Of course, overseas media, including some overseas military organizations, believe that with the development of China's national strength and China's military strength, our nuclear policy may be adjusted.

But in fact, of all the countries in the world that possess nuclear weapons, China is the only one that has declared that it will neither be the first to use nor use it against non-nuclear countries and non-nuclear regions. Since the announcement on the first day of the successful nuclear test in 1964, China's position has not changed, and it has remained true to its previous commitments.

If all the countries in the world possess nuclear weapons held such a position as ours, the world would undoubtedly become a safer place.

In the context of economic globalization, China's national interests continue to expand and extend around the world, and in line with this, China's national defense has also begun to safeguard its national interests in more space. Some people abroad are worried about whether China's defensive national defense policy will change because of the expansion of national interests.

The active defense policy is our core military thinking.

Our strategic approach is active defense, and this is not only an issue that we have repeatedly repeated, but also from the perspective of the structure of the Chinese armed forces.

We still don't have overseas bases, we don't send a single soldier overseas – not counting within the framework of the United Nations, of course, including peacekeeping in Somalia, which is authorized by the United Nations – all of these things reflect China's defensive policy.

Of course, what is more reflected in our approach to resolving border and territorial disputes with neighboring countries.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, we did not seek to change the status quo through the use of force in territorial disputes with neighboring countries, including the division of maritime rights, which made a very deep impression on the world.

And today, for example, the United States, a world power, has been pursuing a preemptive strategy for a long time.

Then in the case of the United States' pursuit of a preemptive strike, Russia is also pursuing a preemptive strike. On the one hand, it was the first to declare a preemptive nuclear strike; On the other hand, after a series of terrorist attacks, Russia announced that its anti-terrorist strategy was also a preemptive strike.

Like Britain and France, some of them are self-explanatory, and some of them are spitting and spitting, and they are also talking about this issue one after another, and they must strike first.

Judging from this environment and against this international background, these big and powerful countries that possess modern, especially information-based combat forces, all regard preemptive strikes as their means.

As a major power, China may be one of the few countries in the world that has announced that it will not take preemptive strikes as its military thinking, and this has a great demonstration effect on the world.

It does not mean that the countries of the world, with the increase of national strength and military strength, preemptive strike has become an inevitable choice.

By the middle of the 21st century, that is, by 2050, we will be able to reach the level of a moderately developed country in terms of economy, and in terms of military strength, we will be able to realize the modernization of national defense and the modernization of the armed forces.

Even when that day comes, we still pursue a defensive strategy, and judging from the history and future of the Chinese nation, no matter how powerful its economic or military power is in the future, it will not take preemptive strike as an option.

Generally speaking, our defensive national defense policy is that if no one offends me, I will not offend anyone, and if anyone offends me, I will offend others.

According to what Comrade Mao Zedong said before, the core of this policy of active defense lies in the word "active."

On the one hand, we will never pursue a military policy of preemptive strikes or a strategy of such strikes, and on the other hand, we are also stressing that our active defense is absolutely not a passive defense, and it is absolutely not clear that there is a great danger that will occur, and we are still waiting until the danger comes to us, and we will not begin to act passively until the beginning of the conflict and the beginning of the war. Our active defense, on a larger scale, safeguards China's national interests in the midst of development and change.

Some countries like to make a big fuss about China's defense spending, and whenever they see that China's military spending has increased, they spread the so-called China threat theory, holding that whether a country's military strength, including national defense spending, is more or less related to whether or not the country poses a threat, and in fact there is no necessary connection.

In 2008, for the first time, we published the basic data on national defense expenditures since the reform and opening up, and the growth, development, and basic changes in national defense expenditures.

Because our national defense expenditures were very low in the past, the increase in national defense expenditures in recent years has been of a great compensatory nature, on the one hand, it is a compensatory input, and on the other hand, it is to improve the treatment of military personnel.

Of course, there is another point, we have to improve our equipment, we have to improve our equipment.

It seems that today, we can only talk about improving life, we can only talk about improving treatment, and it is not good to talk about improving equipment. When it comes to improving equipment, there seems to be a Chinese threat theory, and this is a very unbalanced thing in the world.

Looking around the world, when the armies of all countries are completely updating their equipment, I think it is ridiculous if we update our equipment a little bit and become a threat.

It is inevitable for the Chinese armed forces to renew their own equipment, and even if we complete the renewal of some of our equipment, the equipment of the Chinese armed forces still lags behind the developed countries of the West, especially the United States, by at least 15 to 20 years.

Today, we still have a big gap, we still have a very urgent task in upgrading the army's equipment, and there is still a very huge gap, even if China's military spending increases now, we are still not enough to complete the renewal of equipment in a very short time.

Western media commented that China's equipment has been updated, China's defense spending has increased, and it poses a threat to the world, and I think their reports are not necessarily believed even by themselves.

Because their military experts have already commented that there is a huge gap between China and the West.

Although the absolute value of our defense spending is already among the highest in the world, on a per capita basis, we are actually very far behind.

And we are faced with so many complex peripheral problems, if you compare them, the security of the United States perimeter is very simple. It has only two neighbors, one Canada and one Mexico, both of which are weak and pose no threat to it, and it is blessed with a unique national security environment with the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

The situation around China is very complicated, with 14 countries bordering China, most of which have territorial disputes with us, 6 countries across the sea from us, and most of which have disputes with us over maritime rights and interests.

The complex environment surrounding China is something that the world's major powers do not have.

Under such a simple security situation, the United States still spends eight to nine times as much on defense as China, and in such a complex security environment, our spending is only maintained at the most basic level of national security.