Chinese President Xi Jinping steps up modernization of the People's Liberation Army

Over the past 10 years, the Chinese People's Liberation Army has undergone an unprecedented transformation, both from a structural and technological point of view, with a very significant increase in the professionalization of forces as well as the arrival of very many pieces of equipment equaling, and sometimes even exceeding, the best equipment in service in the Western armies. In addition, the pace of this transformation remains very strong today, with for example the entry into service each year of around ten Type 055, 052D and 054A destroyers and frigates, as well as 5 to 6 dozen J-10C, J-15, J-16 and J-20 fighter jets, to name just a few telling examples. And in fact, the PLA, which in 2010 was considered a second-rate army incapable of competing with the major world armies, is today at the heart of the Pentagon's concerns, and we can feel a very palpable feverishness in the decisions. announced in recent months in the United States to try to contain this new major global power, in particular concerning the thorny case of Taiwan.

However, for President Xi Jinping, the current effort is still insufficient, and remains hampered by certain state and administrative red tape which is detrimental to the accelerated development of his forces. This is the reason why the latter, as president of the Central Military Commission, the highest political defense body in the country, signed a new package of legal measures aimed precisely at relax the conditions under which the Armies can negotiate their equipment contracts, in order to speed up the tempo, and to rapidly increase the operational performance of the PLA, objectively clearly identified by the Chinese President for this reform. He responds thus the expectations expressed by the Chinese Communist Party just over a year ago.

China's national defense industry has made tremendous progress over the past 15 years in almost all areas of defense technology, bringing the country to unprecedented strategic autonomy, notably by breaking away from technology transfers, official or otherwise. , from Russia but also from Europe. Concomitantly with the extension of the production capacities of modern materials, Beijing has also implemented a very aggressive policy to support defense innovation, in particular by encouraging academic researchers who have developed new technologies potentially applicable to La Défense, to convert quickly these innovations in industrial project. This is how the Chinese aeronautics industry has, for example, made immense progress in the field of drones, becoming the leading exporter of military drones since 2016, ahead of the United States, but also in the field of electronics. , missiles or information technology and electronic warfare.

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