Building strong provincial and municipal defensive zones is a strategic policy of the Party and a routine and important task of localities. Being aware of it, Ha Giang province has been drastically and synchronously implementing a number of guidelines and solutions to build a solid defensive zone, meeting the requirements of Homeland construction and protection.

Ha Giang is a northernmost and mountainous province of Vietnam, holding a strategic important position in the defensive posture of the Military Region 2 and the whole country. In recent years, although efforts have been made, Ha Giang is still one of the poorest provinces of the country. Its socio-economic development is slow, and its people are still facing numerous difficulties. Acknowledging that fact, the province has issued guidelines and solutions to promote socio-economic development, considering it a central task. Meanwhile, attention has also been paid to strengthening national defence and building a solid defensive zone.

Sr. Col. Nguyen Cong Dan directs the building of defensive combat determination

First of all, importance has been attached to raising awareness and responsibilities of all agencies, sectors, socio-political organizations and the entire people towards the task of building the defensive zone, creating a unity on awareness and action, and promoting the synergy in the process. The province has directed Party committees and authorities at all levels to thoroughly grasp the Party and State's resolutions and directives on the construction of defensive zones. Emphasis has been placed on the 10^th Politburo's Resolution 28-NQ/TW and the Decrees 152/2007/ND-CP, 02/2016/ND-CP, and 21/2019/ND-CP by the Government. Grounded on those documents, the province has worked out resolutions, directives and plans on defence-military work and the construction of defensive zone, etc., providing a legal basis and ensuring the leadership of the Party committees and the direction of the authorities at all levels for this important task. At the same time, significance has been attached to directing branches and localities to enhance political and ideological education and provide defence and security knowledge for different groups of learners and the entire people.

In the process, the Provincial Military Command and local military agencies have given advice to the Party committees and authorities at all levels on broadening groups of learners and renewing the content and method of defence and security education to make them relevant to the realities of localities, the level of awareness, customs and practices of the people, especially the ethnic minorities and the people in remote areas and the key areas of national defence and security. At the same time, emphasis has been placed on actively conducting the mass mobilization work, participating in building the political system at grassroots level, eradicating hunger and alleviating poverty, and building a solid "people's hearts and minds posture."  Thereby, the awareness and responsibility of a contingent of cadres and party members and the entire population in carrying out military and defence tasks and building the defensive zone have been raised.

Ha Giang is rich in revolutionary tradition and was also the last locality to get out of the war to defend the Fatherland. As a result, it has a large number of policy beneficiaries and families of war invalids and martyrs, etc. In order to contribute to building a "people’s hearts and minds posture," strengthening the politico- spiritual potential of the defensive zone, special attention has been paid to the work of social welfare policy and "paying debt of gratitude." Since 2015, the province has mobilized dozen of billion dongs, allocating regular and irregular allowances to 62,248 households, with over 316,800 people, including 65 Vietnamese Heroic Mothers, 2,243 martyrs' families, 1,033 wounded soldiers, sick soldiers, and policy beneficiaries, building and presenting 33 houses of gratitude and 10 houses of comradeship to social policy beneficiaries in difficulties, approving and paying allowances to over 50,000 subjects according to the Government's decisions, in a strict and accurate fashion. Notably, on September 28^th, 2019, with the participation of former President Truong Tan Sang, the province held a ceremony to launch the building of houses for poor veterans, people with meritorious service to revolution, and poor households in border communes, with the goal of building 2,000 houses by the end of 2020. Along with that, the province has attached importance to leading, directing and building the political system, building clean and strong party organizations, comprehensively strong administration system, well implementing the Grassroots Democracy Regulation, creating consensus among Party committees, authorities and the people in the implementation of guidelines and policies of the Party and the State in general, and the construction of defensive zone in particular.

As a poor border mountainous province, in order to create material resources for the defensive zone, great importance has been attached to economic development, closely combining economy with national defence, security and foreign affairs, ensuring that each achievement in economic development is an enhancement in defence and security potential. Accordingly, the combination of socio-economic development with national defence and security is included right in the development strategies, master plans, and socio-economic development projects of departments, agencies and localities. The Provincial Military Command has worked closely with the Public Security and other departments and agencies to closely appraise socio-economic development plans and projects as the basis for the Provincial Party Committee and People's Committee’s approval. Up to now, socio-economic development projects, such as the construction of urban areas, offices of agencies, industrial zones and clusters, and hydroelectric plants, the projects of mining, mineral processing, and afforestation, etc. which are under construction or have been put into operation all have had the dual use. Socio-economic infrastructure, such as transportation, basic construction, health care, post and telecommunications, has been invested and upgraded in association with defence and security requirements. In particular, national highways, inter-provincial, inter-district, inter-commune roads and border belt roads have been upgraded, expanded and renewed to connect combat bases, logistic hubs, and the key areas of national defence, making contributions to promoting socio-economic development and meeting the requirements of manoeuvring forces and means to ensure the combat operations of the defensive zone and to firmly maintain sovereignty and border security.

Implementing the Government's decision on the overall plan on national defence arrangement and socio-economic development, the province has focused on completing the plan on the use of national defence land in the 2011-2015 period and 2016-2020 period, planning the military posture of defensive zone in the 2016-2020 period, adjusting the master plan on national defence arrangement in combination with socio-economic development towards 2030. The Provincial Military Command has assumed the prime responsibility and cooperated with the provincial departments and agencies to implement the plans. At the same time, it has actively conducted unexploded bomb and mine clearance, bringing people to resettlement zones in border villages and hamlets, ensuring good arrangement of the population and the construction of new rural areas in border areas, particularly the economic-defence zones of Vi Xuyen and Xin Man. In addition, the Provincial Military Command has cooperated with the Border Guard Command to simultaneously implement measures for constructing border defensive line, building and upgrading the system of border posts and stations to become key defensive points and clusters in the military posture of the defensive zone, contributing to building ever more sustainable posture of all-people national defence in combination with the posture of people's security and the posture of all-people border defence.

In addition to building the potential and posture of the defensive zone, great value has been attached to building strong local armed forces, with the reasonable structure, good quality and high combat readiness. Recently, the Provincial Military Command and its Party Committee have given advice to the province on consolidating the organizational structure of military agencies at all levels towards high quality in a compact, strong manner, ensuring the balance between the active force, the reserve force, and the militia and self-defence force. Up to now, the province has built 283 militia and self-defence bases, including 5 standing militia units. In addition, the Provincial Military Command has directed agencies and units to focus on "Improving the quality of training, combat readiness, and discipline practice,” supplementing and completing combat documents and projects, and plans on national defence mobilization, people air-defence, natural disaster prevention and control, search and rescue. Since 2015, the province has directed 100% of districts (cities) and clusters of communes and towns to organize defensive combat drills in combination with search, rescue, and forest fire prevention, etc. In particular, in 2019, the province successfully organized a large-scale provincial defensive zone rehearsal with the participation of a large number of agencies and forces. Through the rehearsals, the province has supplemented the mechanisms and regulations for the operation of the defensive zone, improving the quality of leadership, direction and administration of the Party committees and authorities at all levels as well as the commanding skills and the coordination of the local armed forces and agencies, departments and branches in dealing with defence and security situations, ensuring the better construction and operation of the defensive zone.

After more than 10 years of implementing the 10^th Politburo's Resolution 28-NQ/TW, the province's defensive zone potential has been strengthened in all aspects. The political system at all levels has been consolidated. The mechanism of leadership, management and administration of the Party Committees and authorities at all levels in the construction and operation of the defensive zone has been smoothly operated. The localities have harmoniously combined socio-economic development with the enhancement of national defence and security. The province's economy has considerably improved. Political security is maintained. The local armed forces are built with the high quality and reasonable quantity, and capable of acting as the core in protecting the Party, the local governments and the people. The all-people national defence posture in association with the people's security posture and the all-people border defence posture in the province have been gradually strengthened. Those results have provided a solid foundation for Ha Giang to continue building an increasingly strong defensive zone, meeting the requirements set by the tasks of national construction and defence in the new situation.

Sr. Col. Nguyen Cong Dan, Member of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Board, Commander of the Provincial Military Command