The town of Chi Linh is located in the Northeast of Hai Duong province with the total area of over 282.9km², 3/4 of which is mountainous, and a population of over 220,000 people in 20 communes and wards. The town is enclosed by Dong Trieu mountain range and the system of Thai Binh, Kinh Thay and Dong Mai rivers; the National Routes 18 and 37 connecting Hanoi with provinces in the Northeast of Vietnam as well as waterways and railways are also located in the town. Fully understanding the important position to the Province and Military Region 3’s defensive posture, over the past years, while boosting socio-economic development, the Town’s Party Committee, People’s Council and People’s Committee have always set store by leadership and direction over the defence-military work, particularly the building of defensive zone. To implement the Party’s strategy for building the defensive zones, the Town’s Party Committee and People’s Committee have introduced higher echelons’ relevant resolutions and directives to its affiliates, such as the 10^th Politburo’s Resolution 28-NQ/TW, the 11^th Secretariat’s Directive 07-CT/TW, the Government’s Decrees 152/2007/NĐ-CP and 02/2016/NĐ-CP, and the Action Plan 38-CTr/TU by Hai Duong Provincial Party Committee on executing the Politburo’s Resolution 28-NQ/TW, while clarifying the need for building the defensive zone and combining economic development with defence and security in the area. Grounded on those documents, the town has issued resolutions, directives and projects on defence-military work and defensive zone building in accord with its particularities. Learning from the lessons in previous years, the town has closely led the task of building the defensive zone and encouraged the participation of the political system and forces. It has strictly maintained the mechanism for leadership over the building and operation of the defensive zone, regularly staffed and consolidated the organizations in the defensive zone, particularly the Steering Board on building the defensive zone, promoted the core role of the Military and Public Security agencies in counselling and guiding the implementation process, and at the same time enhanced the work of investigation, inspection and review over the building and operation of the defensive zone at all levels.

To meet the high requirements set by the task of building the defensive zone, particularly the “people’s hearts and minds” posture, all-people national defence posture, and people’s security posture, the town has stepped up the work of political, ideological education and defence-security education to raise cadres, party members and people’s awareness and responsibility towards this important task. Chi Linh has many tourist attractions, worship places, and traditional festivals all year round. Taking advantage of that, the hostile forces have been promoting their acts of sabotage and illegal missionary work with a view to shattering the unity between believers and unbelievers and destabilizing political security and social order. Against that backdrop, while actively renewing form and method of defence-security education, the town has directed the Public Security and Military agencies to closely cooperate with other competent agencies in managing religious activities and festivals in the area; all religious dignitaries in the area must be equipped with defence-security knowledge. To improve the politico-spiritual potential of the defensive zone, the town has focused leadership and direction on improving the quality of the political system and building pure, strong party organizations and comprehensively strong authorities; well executed the Regulations on Democracy at grass-roots level; opportunely detected and completely dealt with the issues arising from reality to avoid being transformed into “flashpoints”. In addition, due regard has been paid to implementing the policy regarding military families and the Gratitude Movement and assisting the people in economic development, hunger alleviation and poverty reduction, achieving a sense of unity between party committees, authorities and people towards the implementation of the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policy in general, the building of the defensive zone in particular.

To mobilize the material resources in the defensive zone, the town has taken measures to exploit its potential and foster socio-economic development. At the same time, it has promulgated proper mechanisms and policies and tapped resources from economic sectors to develop infrastructure, industrial zones, and handicraft villages; encouraged investments in industries and handicrafts to create employment, increase the people’s income, reduce poverty and maintain political stability. In the process, due attention has been paid to combining economic development with defence-security consolidation right in economic development plans by authorities and sectors. As a result, in recent years, the town has witnessed quite rapid economic growth. Industries, handicrafts and capital construction have been developed to serve the public demands; they are also ready for production to serve defence and security missions when necessary. Transportation, health, posts and telecommunications have been made modern and extensive to serve operations both in peacetime and defence situations. To ensure that each economic development step will consolidate defence and security, the town has directed military and public security agencies to closely appraise and supervise socio-economic development planning and projects, particularly in the key zones. The town has studied and completed the Plan to use defence land in the 2011-2015 and 2016-2020 periods and the Plan for the defensive zone’s military posture between 2016-2020; adjusted the Master Plan for defence disposition associated with socio-economic development until 2035 in accord with the Plan to build the town into a city under the province of Hai Duong by 2020. Grounded on those ratified plans, the town has actively mobilized resources in building defensive works, with emphasis placed on exploiting and promoting the advantages of the terrain to save the budget. According to the plan for the 2016-2019 period, the town has spent over 10 billion VND on building several key defensive works in the defensive zone and combat bases.

Significance has been attached to the close, comprehensive, uniform leadership and direction over building the armed forces politically, morally and ideologically strong. In this regard, priority has been given to the forces tasked with manoeuvre and combat readiness; to the building of a contingent of cadres and comprehensively strong military and public security agencies at all levels. Over the past years, the town has well executed the projects and plans related to the militia and self-defence force, the reserve force, military call-up, and military entrance examination work, while drawing up and completing documents and plans for operations, defence mobilization, people’s air defence, flood and storm prevention and control, search and rescue, and organizing training and exercises under the regulations. At the same time, it has improved the effectiveness of collaboration on missions under the Government’s Decree’s 77/2010/NĐ-CP, thereby preventing and well handling defence-security situations. It should be noted that the town has successfully held all-level defensive zone exercises. In the past 10 years, it has held 2 town-level defensive zone exercises, 8 map and model-based office command exercises, and 65 commune-level defensive, flood and storm, and search and rescue drills. Thanks to those exercises, the mechanisms and regulations on the operation of the defensive zone have been supplemented and completed while all-level party committees and authorities’ capabilities in leadership, direction and operation as well as the forces’ capability to deal with defence and security situations have been raised. That has laid an important foundation for building the town’s defensive zone in the upcoming years.

However, the awareness of several cadres, party members and people towards the task of building the defensive zone have yet to be full; some even consider it as the task of the armed forces only. The combination of socio-economic development and defence-security consolidation in some fields has yet to be effective; the building of the military posture is behind the schedule; the capability of the reserve force and the militia and self-defence force is still limited.

From the hands-on experience, particularly the review of 10-year implementation of the Politburo’s Resolution 28, in order to make the defensive zone increasingly strong, the Town’s Party Committee, People’s Council, and People’s Committee will continue to grasp the Party’s military-defence guidelines, to accelerate the action plan to implement the province’s Resolution 28-NQ/TW in line with the Resolution of the 11^th Party Central Committee’s 8^th Plenum on “the Strategy for Homeland protection in the new situation”, and to comprehensively carry out the tasks of building the defensive zone in the potential, force, and posture terms. In this regard, great value will be attached to strengthening the state management of national defence, well performing the work of defence and security education, building strong political bases, and laying a solid politico-spiritual foundation for the defensive zone. At the same time,  due attention will be paid to boosting sustainable socio-economic development associated with defence and security; to mobilizing resources in executing the Project to building the town’s defensive zone between 2016 and 2020 on schedule. 

To satisfy the requirements for the development, the town will continue to review, supplement and complete the regulations and mechanisms for leadership, management and operation of party committees and authorities over the building and operation of the defensive zone as well as the documents stipulating the defence and security work in accordance with reality. A focus will be placed on building the town’s armed forces strong politically, ideologically and organizationally, particularly building the political quality of the armed forces. There is a need for continuing to organize the all-level defensive zone exercises, the support exercises of sectors, the terrorism and riot prevention and combat exercises with a view to enhancing the leadership capability of party committees, the operation capability of authorities, the advisory capability of military and public security agencies and sectors, and the combat readiness capability of the local armed forces. The town will also strengthen the work of investigation, inspection and supervision, strictly handle violations related to defence and security, commend, reward and multiply creative, effective models and approaches in order to make the defensive zone increasingly strong and stable and contribute to making Chi Linh town politically stable, economically strong, and firm in defence and security, thereby deserving to be a city under Hai Duong province by 2020.

Nguyen Duc Hoa, Deputy Secretary of the Town’s Party Committee

Chairman of the Town’s People’s Committee