China's 13th Five-Year Plan Achievements Illustration: GT

China will further upgrade the protection of its national security by incorporating "security and development" in all aspects and process of the country's development, and accelerate the modernization of its military to build a prosperous country and a strong military in the coming years, according to the communiqué of the fifth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).  

The move is part of China's medium-to-long term plan for social and economic development to build China into a modern socialist power and ultimately realize its long-term goal of great rejuvenation. Coming at a critical time of mounting threats to China's national security as well as development interests, the move is aimed at preventing and dissolving all risks that affect China's pursuit for modernization.

Chinese analysts said on Thursday that with a more mature and modern view on national security which covers a wide range to include economic, political, military security, social order, and people's personal safety and public health, China can better handle the complicated situation of internal and external security threats, and provide security for the country to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation step by step from now to 2035, and to the middle of the century. 

The Party's leadership said at a four-day meeting that China will implement national security strategy, make efforts to safeguard and shape the national security, coordinate the traditional and non-traditional security issues, and prevent and defuse risks that could impact the country's modernization, the communiqué said.

China should enhance the national security system and capability building, ensure the national economic security, protect people's life and safety as well as maintain social stability and public security.  

"China has seen increasing external challenges at a critical stage of its rapid development. So building China with a focus on safeguarding security is now an important and urgent issue," Wang Hongwei, a professor at Renmin University of China's School of Public Administration and Policy, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

The initiative to safeguard China's security stressed in the communiqué should cover all spheres of security including protecting the personal safety of the Chinese people, and safeguarding the political, economic, military security, social order and public health, Guo Xiaobing, director of the Arms Control Studies Center of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

With mounting internal and external security challenges, "China will also need to strengthen its capability to safeguard the security of its nationals overseas," Guo said. 

The plenary session also agreed that China needs to accelerate the modernization of national defense and the military and called for integrated efforts to build a prosperous country and a strong military.

The communiqué said the country should "speed up the integrative development to cover military mechanization, informatization and intellectualization, and comprehensively strengthen military training and preparation for war."  

The communiqué also said the country's national defense capabilities and economic strength should be strengthened at the same time and the country should improve the overall arrangement of national defense sci-tech industry, and reinforce military-government and military-civilians unity.

"China is facing increasing external uncertainties," Guo said. "The escalating China-US tensions are a serious challenge to our security, as the US continues to provoke us economically, technologically and militarily."

Chinese analysts said no country can realize development without security, so a modern and powerful military is essential for China to realize its development goal, and the communiqué has further showed that the country will strive to secure and improve its economic development along with its military development.

China's draft revisions to the National Defense Law aim to make Chinese military service a profession revered by society, which analysts said will guarantee that they better accomplish missions in emergencies, wars and occasions in which national sovereignty, security and development interests are threatened.

The draft revisions to the National Defense Law are currently soliciting opinions from the public until November 19.