With the approval of the Party Central Committee (党中央) and the Central Military Commission (CMC) (中央军委), the Regulations on Party Building in the Military of the Communist Party of China (《中国共产党军队党的建设条例》) (hereinafter referred to as the Regulations) was promulgated and implemented recently. The leaders of the CMC Political Work Department (政治工作部) answered reporters’ questions on circumstances related to the Regulations.

Question: Please tell us about the background and significance of the formulation of the Regulations

Answer: Party building in the military is the core issue of military building and development and the key to all military work. Since the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (党的十八大), the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has attached great importance to party building in the military and has made a series of important deployments to set clear requirements for the comprehensive and strict management of the Party and the military. The 19th National Congress (党的十九大) made important arrangements for strengthening party building in the new era, and the revised Party Constitution (党章) put forward new regulations and new requirements. With the overall revolutionary remodeling of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), party building in the military faces many new situations and new problems. The military at all levels earnestly implemented the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee, the CMC, and Chairman Xi, and has accumulated important experience in insisting that the Party manage itself well  with strict Party self-governance in all respects. Facing the new era, a new mission, and a new system, an overall design and comprehensive standard for party building in the military is imperative.

At the 2018 CMC Policy and System Reform Work Conference (中央军委政策制度改革工 作会议), Chairman Xi clearly proposed the formulation of regulations and the building of a normative and complete system for party building in our military. The Party Central Committee has included the Regulations in the Party’s internal lawmaking plan, and the CMC has made specific arrangements for the formulation of the Regulations in the overall deployment of military policy system reform. The drafting of the Regulations was launched in January 2019, and it took more than a year to complete. On June 29, 2020, Chairman Xi presided over a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee (中央政治局会议) to deliberate and pass the Regulations.

The Regulations is the backbone of the Party’s internal regulations for comprehensively regulating party building in the military. It is an important achievement in advancing the reform of military policies and systems and marks a new level of scientific, standardized, and institutionalized party building in our military. The promulgation and implementation of the Regulations are important for enhancing the “Four Consciousnesses” (“四个意识”), strengthening the “Four Matters of Confidence” (“四个自信”), and achieving the “Two Upholds” (“两个维护”); implementing the chairman responsibility system of the CMC; ensuring the Party’s absolute leadership over the military; ensuring the effective fulfillment of the missions of the military in the new era; and ensuring that the PLA maintains its nature, purpose, and true qualities. Moreover, the promulgation and implementation of the Regulations are of great significance to achieving the Party’s goal of strengthening the military in the new era and building the PLA into a world-class military.

Question: What are the distinctive features and key points of the Regulations?

Answer: The Regulations occupies an important position in the Party’s legal system within the military. It is explicitly political, fundamental, pioneering, and practical. Of utmost importance is its political nature. The “Two Upholds” permeate the Regulations, and the requirements of the military committee chairman responsibility system (军委主席负责制) are implemented, with comprehensive provisions related to the Party’s absolute leadership of the military. Major issues that concern the nature, purpose, and true qualities of the people’s armed forces and major issues related to the implementation of strict and comprehensive governance of the Party are included, and the Regulations reflects strong political standards and political requirements. Also of importance is its foundation. The Regulations focuses on major issues with fundamental direction and overall importance in the party building of the military and provide guiding principles and norms for the content of work operations, which demonstrates the basic positioning of basic laws and regulations within the Party. What stands out is its groundbreaking nature. The Regulations carries forward the “red genes” (红色基因) and fine traditions (优良传统) of our Party and our military, summarizes the new experience and new achievements of strict governance of the Party since the 18th National Congress, and adapts to the new requirements of military party building in the new era. For the first time, a comprehensive and systematic regulation of party building in the military has been explicitly set forth, and it is an innovative measure to build a legal system for the Party within the military. Focusing on practicality, the Regulations focuses on solving the prominent contradictions and weaknesses in the party building of the military as well as solving the difficulties, obstacles, and confusions in the party building of the military under the new system, with various regulatory requirements that are very strong in terms of guidance, pertinence, and operability.

The formulation of the Regulations hit upon six key points. First, it highlights the fundamental guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想), thoroughly implements Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military (习近平强军思想), and integrates Chairman Xi’s important instructions on strengthening party building and the deployments of the 19^th National Congress, transforming these aspects into rigid system regulations and strict disciplinary requirements. The second is that it upholds the Party Constitution as fundamental for compliance. By specifying the principles, systems, and requirements of the Party Constitution regarding party building, it fully reflects the new regulations and requirements of the central party’s internal regulations formulated since the 18th CPC National Congress. The third is that it upholds the Party’s absolute leadership over the military with centralized regulations on major issues, such as a series of fundamental principles and systems for the Party’s absolute leadership over the military, implementation of the military committee chairman responsibility system, and leadership systems. The fourth is that it focuses on the main responsibility and main business of preparing for war, implements the strategic requirements of the “Four Standing Ups” (“四个立起来”), and implements combat effectiveness standards and actual combat requirements throughout the entire process of party building in the military. The fifth is that it keeps up with the new era, new missions, and new systems so as to promote system innovation. It makes full use of the results of the CMC Party Building Conference (中央军委党的建设会议) and the recent experiences of military exploration to ensure that various specifications are in line with the new leadership and systems of command, are matched to the newly scaled structure and composition of forces, and are integrated into the effective fulfillment of military missions in the new era. The sixth is that it implements requirements for strict party governance in an all-round way, upholds problem orientation, and integrates strict standards and strict requirements into all aspects of party building in the military.

Question: How can the framework and style of the Regulations be grasped?

Answer: The Regulations contains seven chapters, 79 articles, more than 17,000 characters, and is divided into three major sections. Chapter 1 outlines the general provisions and constitutes the first section. It mainly stipulates the purpose and basis for formulating the Regulations, the role of party building in the military, and the guiding ideology, goals, tasks, and principles. Chapters 2 to 5 constitute the second section and are the bulk of the Regulations. They mainly provide stipulations on the Party’s absolute leadership over the military, the major issues of military committee chairman responsibility system implementation, as well as the military’s party organizations and the military’s party discipline inspection bodies, and set forth the main tasks of party building in the military. Chapters 6 and 7 constitute the third section, which mainly stipulates the responsibility system and supervision and guarantee mechanism for party building in the military as well as supplementary provisions.

Question: What clear provisions do the Regulations make for upholding the Party’s absolute leadership over the military?

Answer: The Party’s absolute leadership over the military is an essential feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics, an important political advantage of the Party and the country, and the foundation of the PLA and the soul of a strong army. The primary task of party building in the military is to ensure the Party’s absolute leadership over the military. The Regulations firmly grasps this primary task and focuses on strengthening the Party’s institutional guarantee of absolute leadership over the military. First, it stipulates the fundamental principles and system of the Party’s absolute leadership over the military. The series of fundamental principles and systems for the Party’s absolute leadership over the military that have been formed through long-term practice are systematically clarified in the form of central party regulations. Second, it stipulates important issues concerning the implementation of the military committee chairman responsibility system and clarifies the status, role, connotation requirements, working mechanisms, and systems of responsibility. Third, it stipulates the leadership system, emphasizes the centralized and unified leadership of the CMC, and standardizes the party organization system of the military. Fourth, it stipulates organizational principles, which mainly consist of maintaining a high degree of consistency with the Party Central Committee, the “Four Obediences” (“四个服从”), and collective leadership. These norms are an important guarantee for upholding the Party’s absolute leadership over the military.

Question: What regulations are made by the Regulations for implementing the CMC’s chairman responsibility system?

Answer: The CMC chairman responsibility system is an important system stipulated by the Party Constitution and the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (宪法). It is the fundamental system and fundamental realization of upholding the Party’s absolute leadership over the military. It is the highest level and the commanding position of the Party’s entire system of leadership over the military. The Regulations specifically provides for the implementation of the CMC chairman responsibility system. First, it clearly implements the connotation requirements for the CMC chairman responsibility system, emphasizing that the CMC chairman must be responsible for the overall work of the CMC, must lead and command the national armed forces, and determine all major issues of national defense and military building. This is implemented throughout the entire process of national defense and military building in various fields. Second, it improves upon the working mechanism for implementing the CMC chairman responsibility system in the hopes of forming a closed loop for implementing the CMC chairman responsibility system. Third, it establishes a responsibility system that implements the CMC chairman responsibility system and clarifies related responsibilities at all levels.

Question: How do the Regulations implement focusing on the requirements of the primary duty of war preparedness and combat capability?

Answer: Chairman Xi has emphasized that party building in the military must closely focus on being able to fight and win wars and becoming an enhancer and power amplifier of the military’s combat effectiveness. The Regulations conscientiously implements Chairman Xi’s instructions and requirements on war preparedness, with the requirements for preparing for war permeating the entire document. This is mainly embodied in four aspects. First, in the principles of party building in the military, with one of the important principles being “persist in focusing on the requirements of the primary duty of war preparedness and combat capability.” Second, it highlights theater party committees as a singular type of party committee in the party organization system of the military and clarifies the leadership relationship of the party organizations of troops performing combat missions. Third, it emphasizes the responsibility of leadership in the primary duty of war preparedness of the party organization in the military. Fourth, in the main tasks of party building in the military, it emphasizes the improvement of the “Five Capabilities” (“五个能力”) of the party committee, promotes the establishment of talent teams such as joint operations command and new combat forces, emphasizes the strengthening of war awareness and actual combat orientation, and cultivates the fighting spirit (战斗精神) and bloody courage (血性胆魄) of officers and soldiers.

Question: What optimizations have been made to the military party organization system in the Regulations?

Answer: Chairman Xi put forward the Party’s organizational line for the new era at the National Organizational Work Conference (全国组织工作会议), emphasizing “focusing on the construction of the organizational system.” After the reform, Chairman Xi reshaped the organization of the PLA as a whole, with new requirements for improving and optimizing the party organization system of the military. The Regulations focuses on forming a military party organization system with reasonable levels, tight structures, efficient operations, and work-friendliness. It aims to respond to the new situation and new problems facing the construction of the party organization system of the military under the new system and generally standardizes the establishment of party organizations and leadership relationships in the military to respectively regulate the functional positioning, powers, composition, methods, and main tasks of six types of party organizations, including party committees in theaters, party committees at all levels, party committees of organs and departments, directly affiliated party committees, basic party committees (party branch committees), and party branches. Among them, there are mainly six aspects of innovation. The first is to clarify the principles of the establishment of party organizations, solving the problems of “whether or not to establish” and “how to establish” party organizations, thereby providing clear compliance for all levels. The second is to refine the general requirements for the establishment of different types of party organizations, adapt to the reality of the diversified organization system and large differences in units after the reform, and clarify the specific requirements for the establishment of party organizations by type so that the establishment of various party organizations can be grounded in evidence. The third is to expand the establishment of certain types of party organizations, adding new units directly under the party committees; units of indeterminate grades; and basic-level party committees and joint party branches of military divisions, brigades, and regiments that do not have their own agencies, and to also clarify the requirements for the establishment of party organizations in temporary institutions. The fourth is to regulate the leadership relationships of party organizations for theater party committees, service party committees, and theater service party committees and clarify the leadership relationship between the forces (teams) that perform combat missions, participate in joint training, and perform non-war military operations and the party organizations of the participating forces (teams). The fifth is to adjust and improve the functional positioning of the party organizations with adjustments, optimizations, and improvements made to the functional positioning of various party organizations carried out in accordance with the new provisions of the Party Constitution and Party Regulations. The sixth is to clarify the principles of party committee composition, adjust the composition of party committees from the past “numbers-oriented” (“名额主导”) to the current “principle-oriented” (“原则主导”) setup, and strive to solve the problem of large differences in the establishment of different types of units at the same level under the new system as well as the difficulty of uniformly stipulating the number of party committee members.

Question: What new regulations do the Regulations make for the Party’s discipline inspection organs in the military?

Answer: The Party Constitution adopted by the 19th National Congress has made some new regulations on the Party’s discipline inspection organs. The Regulations implements the provisions of the Party Constitution, closely follows the reality of the reform of the military’s discipline inspection and supervision system, optimizes the establishment of commissions for discipline inspection, scientifically allocates powers and responsibilities, and integrates relevant systems so that the Party’s discipline inspection organs in the military can better adapt to the new situation and task requirements. There are five main points of improvement. First is clarifying the leadership system of the commissions for discipline inspection, standardizing the leadership relationships between the commissions for discipline inspection at all levels and the commissions for discipline inspection of the combat missions, and ensuring the relative independence and authority of the supervisory powers of the commissions for discipline inspection at all levels. The second is adjusting the functional positioning of the commissions for discipline inspection and clarifying that the disciplinary inspection committees established by the Party in the military are special agencies for internal party supervision within the military responsible for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party and performing its duties of supervision, discipline, and accountability. The third is clarifying the general requirements for the establishment of commissions for discipline inspection; coordinating with the establishment of party organizations; expanding the types of commissions for discipline inspection on the basis of the original three types of commissions for discipline inspection above the regiment level, agency commissions for discipline inspection, and direct commissions for discipline inspection; and expanding and increasing the number of theater commissions and temporary unit commissions for discipline inspection. The fourth is clarifying the main tasks of the commissions for discipline inspection. On the basis of the three main tasks of the commissions for discipline inspection as stipulated in the Party Constitution, the specific content and requirements are clarified based on actual conditions within the military. The fifth is clarifying the general principles and composition of the commissions for discipline inspection, standardizing the composition of the commissions for discipline inspection of theaters, standardizing the composition of commissions for discipline inspection of forces at the regiment level and above and units (excluding theaters) of forces equivalent to the regiment level and above, and standardizing the composition of commissions for discipline inspection of institutions and departments to facilitate implementation.

Question: How do the Regulations stipulate the main tasks of party building in the military?

Answer: The report of the 19th National Congress put forward the general requirements for party building in the new era. It emphasized the leadership of the Party’s political construction and comprehensively promoted the Party’s political building, ideology building, organizational building, style building, and discipline building, incorporating system building throughout to deepen the fight against corruption. In accordance with this overall layout, the Regulations clearly puts forward the principles and requirements for party building in the military, with separate clarification provided for each of the main tasks of such party building. In terms of the Party’s political building, it emphasizes the firm belief in Marxism, the implementation of the “Two Upholds,” the implementation of the CMC chairman responsibility system, strict political life within the Party, the strengthening of political ability training and political practice, and the development of a positive and healthy political culture within the Party. In terms of the Party’s ideological building, emphasis is placed on studying and implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, especially Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military; highlighting the Party’s spiritual education; diligently carrying out the Party’s ideological work; and strengthening ideological and moral building. In terms of the Party’s organizational building, emphasis is placed on improving the quality of implementation of democratic centralism, highlighting political standards to diligently recruit party members, strengthening the building of cadres and talent teams, implementing standards for good military cadres, and strengthening the construction of the Communist Youth League. In terms of the Party’s style building, emphasis is placed on the strict implementation of the spirit of the Party Central Committee’s Eight-Point Decision on Improving Party and Government Conduct (中央八项规定), the CMC’s Ten Regulations (军委十项规定), and the spirit of their rules for implementation, the comprehensive and thorough rectification of problems of peace, corrections to the style of training and examination, and the promotion of the spirit of strictness and style. In terms of the Party’s discipline building, emphasis is placed on political discipline as a primary priority, with in-depth disciplinary education, strict discipline requirements, and rigid implementation of discipline. In terms of the Party’s system building, emphasis is placed on strengthening the awareness of the Party Constitution, deepening the reform of the party building system in the military, and maintaining the seriousness and authority of the Party’s laws and regulations. In terms of the struggle against corruption, emphasis has been placed on maintaining a high-pressure situation in investigating and punishing corruption, strengthening supervision and remediation in key industries, deepening and expanding political inspections, and fostering a culture of clean government. These regulations implement Chairman Xi’s important instructions on party building, respond to the issues of what to grasp and what to do in party building within the military, and provide compliance for the routine work of party building at all levels.

Question: What specific measures do the Regulations take to improve the responsibility system and supervision and guarantee mechanism for party building in the military?

Answer: Since the 18th National Congress, the Party Central Committee has attached great importance to the implementation of the responsibility system for party building work and the improvement of relevant internal party laws and regulations, effectively promoting the implementation of responsibility for strict party governance. The Regulations focuses on consolidating the chain of responsibility for party governance, clearly stipulate the responsibility system for party building in the military, and propose the establishment of centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee and the CMC, with party committees performing the primary duties and commissions for discipline inspection performing supervisory responsibilities and with responsibility systems for each agency and department. The Regulations emphasizes improvements to the Party’s political building work responsibility system, ideological work responsibility system, institutional party building responsibility system, grassroots party building work responsibility system, and party style and clean government building responsibility system. The Regulations addresses the problem of insufficient implementation of party building work and requires improvements to and implementation of supervisory mechanisms at all levels. In response to the problem of insufficient strength in party building, it emphasizes the building of teams of secretaries and party affairs personnel. In response to the lack of organizational power of a number of grassroots party organizations, it emphasizes the improvement and implementation of open party affairs; the Party’s incentives, care, and assistance; and the military’s party commendation system to improve fault tolerance and corrective mechanisms. In response to problems in the work guarantees of grassroots party organizations, it emphasizes that party committees at all levels should provide necessary guarantees for grassroots party organizations to carry out activities. These regulations have adapted to the deployment requirements for strict governance of the Party in an all-round way; respond to the concerns of the troops, officers, and soldiers; and provide institutional support for solving problems in the work of party organizations.

Question: Tell us about how to properly implement the Regulations.

Answer: The vitality of the system lies in its implementation. In accordance with the requirements of the Party Central Committee and the CMC, the study and implementation of the Regulations must be taken as an important political task to promote the realization of the Regulations and to see real results. Party committees and leading cadres at all levels must fully and accurately grasp the requirements of the Regulations, study the Regulations from beginning to end, fully grasp its content, deeply understand its spirit, and improve the awareness and ability of party building. Using centralized classes, counseling, lectures, seminars, and exchanges, diligently study, train, publicize, and interpret the Regulations to instill various regulations and requirements within your minds and hearts. The Regulations must be strictly followed to standardize and strengthen party building in the military, carefully review and inspect the party building of each unit, and resolutely correct those that do not comply with the Regulations. Party organizations at all levels should assume the political responsibility for studying and implementing the Regulations, analyzing the situation in a timely manner, studying and resolving problems, and strengthening supervision and inspection. Those who fail to effectively implement these measures shall be held accountable. The party building work teams, party building research institutions, and the majority of party members must combine their own responsibilities with the earnest implementation of the requirements of the Regulations. Through joint efforts, we will promote the high-quality development of party building in the military and gather great momentum (磅礴力量) to strengthen and rejuvenate the armed forces.