Yesterday, the General Staff Headquarters, the General Political Department, the General Logistics Department and the General Armaments Department of the PLA jointly issued a notice to give commendation to the 36 first-class army and armed police units in military training in 2005. Different from the previous years, this notice listed, for the first time, three units that are degraded to second-class units in military training and specially approved five units that had outstanding performance in major exercises as first-class units in military training. This move symbolizes that the evaluation of the combat effectiveness of the army is witnessing great changes.

　　According to the responsible leaders concerned of the general headquarters/departments, the "military exercise evaluation system" has been used for the first time in rating the Army units in military training. The combat effectiveness of the troops is examined and assessed all-roundly from five major aspects such as command and control, long-distance maneuver, firepower strike, overall protection and integrated support by way of collecting tens of thousands of battlefield information data. This symbolizes that the appraisal of military training has shifted from general evaluation to precise and quantized one.

　　By Yan Yong and Hu Junhua