President Hu Jintao urges armed forces of China to strengthen CPC; Chinese Foreign Minister offers five proposals at 17th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Hanoi; People's Bank of China signs a 150-billion-yuan currency swap agreement; The Chinese a
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    • Chinese President Hu Jintao, recently, urged the armed forces to strengthen Communist Party of China in a more scientific way. Hu asked the forces to consider party building as a most important political task. President Jintao who is also General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made these remarks during a seminar on party building in which the many PLA officials and delegates participated.1

    Addressing at 17th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Hanoi on Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said that the situation in Asia-Pacific region was generally stable, though the unstable and uncertain factors were on the rise. Jiechi offered five proposals to the ARF aimed at enhancing regional security. He proposed that first, countries should accord top most priority to the regional peace and stability when dealing with sensitive regional issues; secondly, countries should adopt a new security concept emphasizing upon cooperation rather than confrontation and protect legitimate interests of others’; thirdly, countries should strengthen mutual trust and work towards long-term, healthy and stable relations; fourthly, countries should settle disputes through peaceful means; and fifth and finally, countries should make use of multilateral mechanism like Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN Regional Forum and Six-Party Talks to promote common interest and common security.2

    Meanwhile, in an important development at economic front, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, has signed a 150-billion-yuan (US$22.12 billion) currency swap agreement with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). According to the statement issued by PBOC, the agreement has a three-year maturity and can be extended if both sides agree.3

    Angola’s Minister of Defense Candido Pereira dos Santos Van-Dunem visited China and met Vice Chairman of China's Central Military Commission Guo Boxiong in Beijing on Wednesday. During this meeting, the Chinese side pledged to enhance military exchanges with Angola.4

    The media reported that the Chinese and Kazakhstani troops recently conducted a joint inspection around the No.132 marker along the Sino-Kazakhstani border, as a confidence-building measure. In this 5-hour-long activity, the combined troops inspected facilities on the border including wire netting. This exercise was carried out by ways of walking, using motor vehicles and riding horses in one square km area of China-Kazakh border.5

    The National Defense University (NDU) organized a week-long workshop on combat readiness of transportation infrastructure, which was concluded on July 19, 2010. In this workshop, Member of the Central Military Commission (CMC), State Councilor and Defense Minister Liang Guanglie stressed that the combat readiness of transportation infrastructure was equally helpful both for military and civil purposes. He also reiterated that the integrated military-civil development of transportation infrastructure would be further strengthened.6

    The Yangtze River valley is facing a grave flood situation. The PLA is at forefront to aid and assist civilian authorities to flood-fight in the region and has deployed nearly 80,000 personnel to handle the situation. It has kept another 100,000 servicemen and militiamen as back-up for the disaster management. Here, it is noteworthy that the PLA constitutes an important component in China’s disaster management strategy.7

    In other developments, the Anti-Chemical Command and Engineering College of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have jointly organized the 2nd International Assistance and Protection Training. The week-long training started on July 19 2010 in Beijing. Trainees from 21 countries participated in this programme.8

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