Thirty-Five years ago Deng Xiaoping accused the People's Liberation Army (pla) of "bloating, laxity, conceit, extravagance and inertia". Even so, three years later, when he set about modernising China, he put the pla last in the queue, behind farming, industry and science. And when the commander of the navy in 1982 laid out his plans for China to become a world sea power, he did not expect his goal to be realised before 2040.
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