Hu Jintao attends event to celebrate 80th anniversary of People's Liberation Army

(31 Jul 2007) SHOTLIST
1. Mid of Chinese President Hu Jintao walking into the Great Hall of the People
2. Mid of Hu shaking hands with veterans
3. Mid of veterans applauding
4. Various of performance showing the establishment of People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1927
5. Various of performance showing soldiers fighting the Japanese during the World War II
6. Various of performance showing the PLA taking over the country
7. Wide of audience
8. Various of performance showing PLA today
9. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Major General Liu, People's Liberation Army:
"The performance recalled the glorious history of the past eighty years and was very encouraging. It gave us firm confidence in our future. We will create a brighter future under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party."
10. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Colonel Shi, People's Liberation Army:
"Our greatest mission is, like the performance has shown to us all, to realise the integration and reunification of our motherland and to safeguard our sovereignty."
11. Various of performance
STORYLINE
The Chinese military celebrated the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) on Monday, with a grand gala performance in Beijing, which confirmed its loyalty to the Communist Party of China.
Just days before the anniversary, Chinese President Hu Jintao offered fulsome praise for the PLA and showed his support for the continued modernisation of the world's largest military force.
Hu and other senior dignitaries of the government and the military attended Monday's celebration, where a series of performances depicted the PLA through the years.
The military is marking its August 1 anniversary with new uniforms to update the old baggy style that has changed little in the nearly three decades since China's economy began to prosper.
An exhibition in Beijing is showcasing some of the fruits of years of huge increases in defence spending, transforming a military long regarded as huge but vastly outdated.
Yet it is the halting moves toward greater transparency that are the most striking, apparently motivated both by the demands of military modernisation and the need to assuage nervous neighbours.
Those began with the publication of biannual reports on the military in 1998 that have slowly but steadily grown more detailed, even while repeating threats to attack Taiwan, the self-governing island that China says is its territory.
Since then, increasing numbers of foreign observers have been permitted at PLA exercises. Drills and port visits have been held with the U.S., French, Indian and other navies, and full-scale exercises held with Russia and other Central Asian states.
And for the first time ever this year, a Chinese general attended a multilateral defence forum, surprising attendees by announcing the PLA's intention to set up an emergency hotline with the Pentagon.
China's Defence Ministry is also reportedly planning to appoint a media spokesman - a huge step for a body that until recently didn't even have a published phone number.
Defence spending for the 2.3 million-member PLA - the world's largest army - continues to balloon, rising 17.8 percent this year to 351 billion yuan (44.94 billion US dollars).
That puts China roughly in the same neighbourhood as Japan, Russia and Britain in defence spending, although it spends less than one-tenth of what the U.S. military costs.
The Pentagon says China's real defence spending may be much more, because the official budget doesn't include major weapons purchases and other items.

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