PLA Daily 2005-06-21

　　The PLA Daily published an editorial today entitled "The Legal Basis for Army's Participation in Dealing with Emergencies and Disaster Relief", which points out that the Regulations on the Army's Participation in Dealing with Emergencies and Disaster Relief, promulgated jointly by the State Council and the Central Military Commission, is the first regulations issued to standardize the army's participation in dealing with emergencies and disaster relief since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The Regulations has brought the mission of the army to participate in dealing with emergencies and disaster relief onto the track of the legal system, which is of far-reaching importance for the nation to effectively cope with disastrous contingencies, and for the army to give full play to the role of a shock brigade in dealing with emergencies and disaster relief to protect the national economic achievements and the people's lives and property, and to maintain social stability and development.

　　The editorial points out that the army, as an armed body for carrying out the political tasks, is mandated by its historical mission and its fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly to participate in dealing with emergencies and disaster relief in order to safeguard the national interests and protect the people's lives and property. China is one of the countries in the world that are most seriously frequented by varied disasters, resulting in serious damage to the national economic construction and the people's lives and property. Thus, striving to reduce the damage caused by disasters to the minimums is an important content of implementing the people-oriented, comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable scientific outlook on development in our efforts to build a harmonious socialist society. In the past 50-odd years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, our army has successfully accomplished its combat preparedness missions, military trainings and other important tasks. In the meantime, it has also taken dealing with emergencies and disaster relief as its important peacetime tasks and accomplished them successfully. At every crucial moment when the national interests and people's lives and property were seriously threatened, the army was always in forefront to undertake the most urgent, most difficult and most dangerous tasks. From the Tangshan Earthquake to the forest fire disaster in the Great Hinggan Mountains, from the flood-fighting in 1998 to meeting the challenges brought about by sudden outbreak of SARS, our officers and men had time and again protected the state property and people's lives with their own blood and lives and made historical contributions to the victories of dealing with emergencies and disaster relief. However, in previous emergency rescue and disaster relief operations, some conflicts and problems were exposed with respect to employment of military strength, organization and command, military-civilian coordination as well as disaster relief support. In order to solve these conflicts and problems, the legal measures should be adopted to standardize these activities in addition to the administrative measures. The Regulations promulgated has specified the rights and obligations of the army and the localities in dealing with emergencies and disaster relief, and has enabled both the army and the localities to have the law to go by in dealing with emergencies and disaster relief, thus the army and civilian will be faster in response, quicker in action, more orderly and effective in dealing with emergencies and disaster relief.

　　(June 21, PLA Daily)