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Coordination and Promotion of Military-Civilian Integration and the “One Belt and One Road”

{Editor’s Note: In recent years, since Xi Jinping took office, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been pursuing a strategy of integrating military with civilian usage. It is taking civilian technologies and transforming them so they can be used for military purposes on a massive scale. In a way, a large number of civilian enterprises have thus been tinted with a military color. At the same time, economic development has also been taking the factor of war into account, especially in the manufacturing industry. When needed, a civil society can quickly be mobilized to serve military purposes. The article below is a policy proposal from a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences scholar. It advocates the expansion of the military-civilian integration to the countries and regions along the “One Belt and One Road.” In a sense, the idea would turn the “One Belt and One Road” country bloc into a certain type of cooperation in military technologies.

The following is a translation of selected excerpts from the article.} {1}

Coordination and Promotion of Military-civilian Integration and the
“One Belt and One Road”

April 25, 2017

Red Flag Manuscript

By Shen Yanxin

The strategy issue is a fundamental issue for a political party and a country. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that “military-civilian integration is a national strategy that concerns the overall security and development of our country. It is a move to rejuvenate the nation as well as a strategy for strengthening the military.” Promoting military-civilian integration and strengthening the military through technology “must be coordinated within the overall national strategic layout in line with the national strategic plan.” “The construction of the ‘One Belt and One Road’ is also a major strategic decision that the Party’s Central Committee made. Both are part of the national strategy. It is a topic worthy of in-depth research on how to ensure that both the strategic military-civilian integration and the “One Belt and One Road” work hand in hand to achieve coordinated progress and mutual reinforcement.

I. With “One Belt and One Road,” the military-civilian integration has made significant progress.

“Defense technology and munitions are the focus of the military-civilian integration, as well as an important indicator for measuring the level of military-civilian integration.” {2} The implementation of the “One Belt and One Road” initiative has pushed forward military technology exchanges and cooperation between China and the countries along the route so that the integration takes place on a larger scale, at a higher level, and goes deeper. The national defense technology industry is a natural carrier for military-civilian integration. So far, with the promotion of the “One Belt and One Road,” international exchange and cooperation in the national defense technology industry have achieved important results.

International cooperation in the field of nuclear technology has also deepened. At present, “nuclear power” has become the representative “business card” of China, just like the “high-speed rail.” Since the launch of the “One Belt and One Road” initiative, China’s nuclear power technology has seen steady breakthroughs. Statistics show that among the countries and regions along the “One Belt and One Road,” in addition to China, there are 19 countries and regions already equipped with nuclear power and more than 20 countries and regions are planning to develop nuclear power. China has already signed cooperation agreements with Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, France, Jordan, Armenia, and other countries. It is estimated that a total of 240 nuclear power units will be built by 2030, 80 percent of which will be built in the neighboring countries along the “One Belt and One Road.” China alone is striving to build about 30 nuclear power units in the countries along the “One Belt and One Road” by 2030.

Aerospace multilateral (bilateral) international scientific and technological cooperation has advanced and delivered results. With the opportunities derived from the “One Belt and One Road,” China’s aviation industry is further integrated into the world aviation industrial chain. In the aerospace field, China has signed space cooperation agreements with more than 30 countries, and established good government and commercial cooperation mechanisms with countries along the “One Belt and One Road,” thus laying a good foundation for the promotion and application of spatial information technology. At present, on the southern route of the “One Belt and One Road,” China promotes technical cooperation with Asian and African countries on helicopters, regional aircraft, and general aviation industries. It also promotes the development of the aviation industry in relevant countries through the establishment of customer service bases. On the northern route of the “One Belt and One Road,” China and Russia will cooperate on wide-body aircraft and heavy-duty helicopters, and will make it an important achievement in Sino-Russian cooperation in the field of equipment manufacturing.

The spatial information corridor of the “One Belt and One Road” has been developed and promoted. In 2016, the State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) and the China National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued the “Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development and Application of the “One Belt and One Road” Spatial Information Corridor.” The spatial information corridor is mainly based on communication satellites, navigation satellites, and remote sensing satellite resources that are in orbit or in the planning stage. These appropriately complement the space-based resources and the ground information sharing network to form a four-in-one spatial information service system of “sensation, transmission, knowledge, and use.” The spatial information service system provides spatial information service capabilities for countries and regions along the “One Belt and One Road” to achieve information interconnection.

In addition, the implementation of the “One Belt and One Road” initiative and especially the development of the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road,” have also brought about important strategic opportunities for Chinese shipping companies, the munitions industry, and electronic technology. The achievements in military-civilian integration have been remarkable.

III. Specific proposals for the coordination and promotion of military-civilian integration and the “One Belt and One Road”

3. Strengthen the coordination of science and technology and strive to improve the innovation ability of the military-civilian synergy.

Scientific and technological innovation have always played a leading role in the development of the “One Belt and One Road.” With the continuous advancement of science and technology, “national strategic competitiveness, social productivity, and military combat effectiveness are becoming more and more intertwined; the defense economy, the social economy, along with military and civilian technology have become more and more integrated.” {3} Therefore, the two strategies of promoting the military-civilian integration and the “One Belt and One Road” have highlighted an urgent need for scientific and technological innovation.

We should take advantage of the “One Belt and One Road” innovation platform in a comprehensive way to accelerate the innovative military-civilian integration. In September 2016, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued the “Special Plan for Promoting the ‘One Belt and One Road’ to advance Cooperation in Scientific and Technological Innovation.” This set forth proactive measures for the “One Belt and One Road” technology innovation cooperation: together with countries along the “One Belt and One Road,” China will build a number of research laboratories, joint research centers, technology transfer centers, and advanced technology demonstration and promotion bases to promote the interconnection and service sharing of data and technology resources and to strengthen the application of new technologies in smart grids and information communication networks. The establishment of such an open platform infrastructure will help promote the two-way transfer and transformation of military and civilian technologies, benefit joint research, and enhance research on basic, cutting-edge, and key technologies.

We should comprehensively take advantage of the “One Belt and One Road” talent platform to serve the military-civilian integration. The Communist Party and the State have proposed to improve the military personnel’s support system and train new military talent in large numbers and of high-quality. The “Special Plan for Promoting the ‘One Belt and One Road,’ and to Develop Scientific and Technological Innovation Cooperation” clarifies the talent training goal for scientific and technological innovation cooperation: in three to five years, the exchanges and cooperation between science and technology personnel will be substantially improved and over 150,000 scientific and technical personnel will come to China for exchange training. More than 5,000 outstanding young scientists will be working in China. This provides the possibility for the integration of educational resources for the military-civilian integration. At present, to achieve the coordination of science and technology resources, we need to build a policy regime for the “One Belt and One Road” related resources available to provide services for the military-civilian integration.

Author: Associate Research Fellow, Department of Political History, Institute of Contemporary China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Endnotes:
{1} Red Flag Manuscript, Shen Yanxin, “Coordination and Promotion of Military-Civilian Integration and the “One Belt and One Road,” April 25, 2017.
http://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/hqwg/2017-04/25/c_1120868189.htm
{2} A quote from a speech given by Xi Jinping.
{3} Ibid.