1st Ld-Writethru-China Focus: PLA pledges allegiance to Party's "absolute leadership"

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) reiterated its commitment to the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in a new document released Friday.

According to the document on the political work of the PLA issued by the Central Military Commission, the armed forces will perfect the current system, increase the capacity of Party organs attached to it and ensure strict discipline.

The key mission of the political work is to "forge the soul" of the armed forces so officers and soldiers will follow the CPC's commands, the document said.

The political work of the PLA often refers to armed forces tasks other than combat training, such as ideological education and human resource management.

In the face of new circumstances and challenges, political work must be enhanced rather than weakened, it said, adding that Party officials in this line of work should be proactive.

"We should be fully aware of the ultimate importance, necessity and urgency to improve the political work in the PLA and always regard it as the top priority," it said.

The armed forces should be educated with important theories of communism and socialism with Chinese characteristics as well as the principles and policies put forward by President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

The priorities of the PLA political work listed by the document read as follows:

-- The top task of ideological education is to foster faith throughout all levels of the armed forces, especially the upper echelons. The PLA should work to train a new generation of servicemen with soul, skill, personality and integrity and they should be confident of the path, theory and system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

-- The political work should contribute to the improvement of combat effectiveness, help officers and soldiers develop ethics and bravery of professional soldiers and improve skills.

-- The PLA will reform the management of officers so as to make the armed force a more attractive career for young people and raise the sense of pride among the servicemen.

-- The PLA will tighten supervision on the process of selecting and promoting officers. A qualified officer should be loyal to the Party, capable to fight and win wars, responsible, honest and upright.

-- More efforts will be made to weed out corruption in the military. The PLA will continue fighting harmful conduct and tighten supervision on senior officers.

-- Party organs attached to the armed forces should play a better role of uniting soldiers and improving their fighting capability. They should focus on daily education on the servicemen in the long run.

-- Officers serving at the PLA political departments should set an example for other servicemen. They themselves should strengthen political consciousness and display unconditional loyalty to the Party. Endi