The 13th Party Congress determined that strengthening defence and security, firmly protecting the Fatherland, etc. are important and regular tasks of the Party, State, political system, and the whole people. It is an important, cross-cutting issue paid much attention to by Quang Ninh Province, especially defence and military tasks, to meet the requirements of protecting the Fatherland in the new situation.

In recent years, along with promoting socio-economic development and improving people's living standards, Quang Ninh Provincial Party Committee and People's Committee have always focused on leading and directing the good implementation of local defence and military work to create multiple positive changes, particularly enhanced awareness of cadres, Party members, and people towards the tasks of building and protecting the country; increasingly firm defence potentials and the all-people defence posture in association with the people's security posture and the “people's heart-and-mind posture”; improved overall quality and combat power of the Provincial armed forces; and maintained political security, social order, safety, and sovereignty over borders, seas, and islands, to create a favourable environment for the province to develop quickly and sustainably. This is a solid basis and premise for the Party Committee, authorities, and people of Quang Ninh Province to continue thoroughly grasping and effectively implementing the views, policies, and guidelines on defence and military tasks under the 13th Party Congress’ Resolution.

Promoting the achievements, at the beginning of the 2020 - 2025 term, the Province proactively issued several documents for leading and organising the implementation of local defence and military work based on the actual situation, typically Resolution No.03-NQ/TU issued on March 23rd, 2021 by the Provincial Party Committee Standing Commission on “Leading the local defence and military work in the 2021 - 2025 period”, Resolution No.06-NQ/TU issued on May 17th, 2021 by the Provincial Party Committee on “Sustainable socio-economic development in association with firmly ensuring defence and security in communes, villages, and hamlets in ethnic minority, mountainous, and border areas and islands in the 2021 - 2025 period and vision to 2030”, etc. To successfully implement the above resolutions, the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial People's Committee have been drastically leading and directing all levels of Party committees, party organisations, units, and localities to synchronously deploy the following key contents.

Firstly, strengthening the absolute and direct leadership in all aspects of the Party committees and the effectiveness and efficiency of the centralised and unified management of the authorities over local defence and military tasks. Considering it the most important content, the Provincial Party Committee Standing Commission directs Party committees and organisations at all levels to continue thoroughly grasping and strictly implementing the Party and State’s directives and resolutions on defence and military tasks, particularly Strategy for protection of the Fatherland in the new situation, the Politburo’s Resolution No.28-NQ/TW (the 10th Tenure), the Government’s Decree No.21/2019/NĐ-CP on defence areas, and Military Region 3 and the Province’s directing documents and instructions on defence and military work. The Province has directed localities to harmoniously combine rapid and sustainable socio-economic development with strengthening defence and security right from the stage of planning and plan development to ensure that regional planning and that of branches and sectors must be suitable and associated with defence and military master plans with attention paid to building works and developing modern, multi-purpose, and dual-use industries to serve socio-economic development and ensure defence in case of emergency. During the implementation, it is necessary to improve the efficiency of the state management of defence, closely appraise master plans, plans, and projects in border and border-gate areas, and strengthen the examination, inspection, and supervision of the implementation of local defence and military work to prevent, promptly detect, and correct shortcomings and violations.

Secondly, promoting the strength of the great unity bloc of the entire people and building a “solid people's heart-and-mind posture” in protecting the Fatherland. Due to the hostile forces’ fierce opposition, the Province has directed the Steering Committee 35 at all levels to improve operational efficiency; closely coordinate with agencies, units, and armed forces in the province in propagating and combining “construction” with “prevention” to create an active position on the communication front and protect the Fatherland “from afar”; actively renovate contents and forms, improve the quality and effectiveness of ideological, political, and revolutionary ethical propagation and education, and foster defence and security knowledge suitable to each object; and pay much attention to specific objects, ethnic minority areas, border areas, seas, islands, and economic and industrial zones. Along with that, the Province has directed organisations in the political system to pay attention to and well implement policies on ethnicity and religion; arouse and promote the good cultural values, tradition of “Discipline and consensus”, self-reliance, and self-self-sufficiency of the people in the Mining region to build a culture rich in Quang Ninh identity; well implement projects, programs, and plans for socio-economic development, ensure social security and welfare, and constantly improve and enhance the material and spiritual life of the people; give priority to areas with special difficulties, border areas, islands, mountainous areas, and ethnic minority areas to gradually narrow the rich-poor gap among regions and localities in the Province by specific and practical mechanisms and policies, thereby, creating social consensus and strengthening people's trust in the Party and authorities at all levels; and promoting the strength of the great unity bloc of the whole people to build a solid “people's heart-and-mind posture” in protecting the Fatherland.

Thirdly, building a comprehensively strong all-people defence and an increasingly solid provincial defence area. To make it effective, the Province has directed the Party committees and organisations at all levels to focus on building and consolidating a clean and strong grassroots political system; improve the quality and efficiency of the activities of the Fatherland Front and socio-political organisations; continue implementing the policy of assigning Border Guard officers to border communes and wards to avoid “zero-party” villages and hamlets; focus on building a strong provincial defence area to closely link to the defensive posture of Military Region 3; prioritise planning, comprehensively and synchronously building the components constituting the military posture in border localities, seas, islands, and economic zones; develop mechanisms to mobilise all social resources under the provisions of law for strengthening defence and security potentials in defence area, especially strategic and key areas of border lines, seas, and islands; actively grasp and forecast closely and properly the situation from afar, early, and from the grassroots; and uphold the spirit of vigilance to timely detect and resolutely struggle to defeat the plots and tricks of “peaceful evolution” and “riot and subversion” of hostile and reactionary forces. The Province has directed the Provincial Military Command and the Provincial Public Security to assume the prime responsibilities for coordinating in advising and developing plans for improving the quality of training, drills, and civil defence under the Scheme for provincial and district-level defence area rehearsals in the 2021 - 2025 period to suit the local realities; well implement policies to support fishermen in building offshore fishing fleets strong enough to adhere to the sea and combine production with protection of sea and island sovereignty; and continue studying and adjusting forces in association with rearranging population, implementing migration projects, and expanding people to the border to create a solid all-people defence posture.

Fourthly, paying attention to building strong provincial armed forces with high combat power to serve as the core in implementing defence and military tasks. Implementing the policy of building the armed forces in the direction of “elite, compact, and strong”, suitable to the functions and tasks of each force, the Province has focused on building a comprehensively strong military and police agencies with organisation and staffing as prescribed, strong political bravery, and high combat readiness. Regarding the reservists, the Province has built the force under the motto of “strength, mobilisation readiness, and combat readiness”. It has also built a “strong and widespread” militia and self-defence force, whose number, structure, and composition are suitable to the requirements and tasks of each branch and locality, especially in the coal sector, economic zones, industrial parks, and foreign-invested enterprise and enhanced the operational efficiency of the standing militia, mobile militia and self-defence force, and maritime militia and self-defence force. Along with force building, the Province has directed the armed forces to strictly maintain order and modes of watch duty, and combat readiness and improve the quality of training and drills. Particularly, importance has been attached to training the forces to use proficiently all kinds of weapons and equipment. In citizen selection and recruitment, the Province has led and mobilised the participation of the whole political system and the entire people; requested localities to strictly implement the registration and management of citizens of military service age and deploy stages and steps to ensure strict, public, fair, democratic and lawful compliance; strengthened coordination between the armed forces and agencies, departments, branches, and socio-political organisations in mass mobilisation and prevention and control of “peaceful evolution”; effectively maintained clusters of “safety units - safe areas” in association with models of typical communes, wards, and towns and models of security and order to contribute to building a strong political base; and promptly detected and effectively handled complex cases from the grassroots.

Finally, expanding and improving the efficiency of international relations activities and building borders of peace, friendship, stability, cooperation, and development. Deeply grasping the Party's international relation policy and viewpoints, the Province has actively implemented comprehensively, synchronously, and effectively the international relation policy of independence, self-reliance, multi-lateralisation, and diversification of relations and proactive international integration; create a position of interlacing interests of both cooperation and struggle in the Province; strengthened political trust to avoid conflict, confrontation, isolation, and dependence; continued effectively implementing and expanded the model of residential cluster twins on both sides of the border to create a favourable environment for socio-economic development; comprehensively and synchronously renovated border guard work measures; improved the effectiveness and efficiency of the management and protection of borders, seas, and islands under laws and border agreements, and regulations that Vietnam has signed or acceded to. In the process of implementation, it is necessary to uphold principles, but be flexible in dealing with border issues, to avoid tension, complications, and confrontation, and firmly protect the independence and territorial sovereignty, and border, sea, and islands security to maintain border areas of peace, friendship, stability, cooperation, and development.

VU XUAN DIEN, Member of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Commission, Head of the Internal Affairs Department of Quang Ninh Provincial Party Committee