Thoroughly grasping the Party’s military-defence guidelines and the features of the localities, Yen Bai has been implementing multiple drastic and synchronous measures for the building of solid defensive areas; and focus has been placed on strengthening potentialities to meet the requirements and tasks of building and protecting the Fatherland.

Yen Bai, a mountainous province in the Northwest of the country, has numerous waterways and land routes that facilitate trading and economic development; there are also multiple caves and heights that have military significance. Being fully aware of the advantages, in the recent years, together with accelerating the socio-economic development, the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee have attached importance to leading and directing the implementation of defence-military work, the building of solid defensive areas, especially, the reinforcement of potentialities, which has brought about encouraging outcomes. Notably, the political system has been strengthened to ensure its purity and power; the mechanisms for leading and managing of party committees and authorities at all levels in building and operating defensive areas have been paid much attention to and are well-functioning; and combining socio-economic development with strengthening national defence and security has become increasingly close and in-depth. The province’s economy grows substantially, political and rural security has been well maintained. The local armed forces have been developed appropriately in quantity and quality; the all-people national posture in association with the people’s security posture has been firmly consolidated to meet the requirements and tasks of protecting the Fatherland.

However, due to its low starting point, Yen Bai remains an underprivileged province with slow socio-economic development, and the people, cadres, and soldiers face multiple difficulties in their lives. This is also where hostile forces and reactionaries take advantage of “ethnicity” and “religion”  to conduct their sabotage activities. Urbanisation, economic restructuring, and tourism development have been creating problems in social management; disasters and the Covid-19 pandemic, which become increasingly complicated, have been causing instability in political security, social order, and safety. Thus, along with the comprehensive implementation of all aspects of work, the province should focus on leading and directing the execution of defence-military work, especially, building and strengthening the potentialities and posture of defensive areas to accomplish the two strategic tasks of building and protecting the Fatherland.

The Provincial armed forces build rural traffic road with local people

First and foremost, the province should strengthen its roles in propagating and educating to improve the awareness and responsibility of all levels, branches, and people from all ethnic groups towards national defence, military, and Fatherland protection. On that foundation, it is required to build politico-spiritual potentialities in defensive areas, especially “people’s heart and mind posture”. To this end, the province should focus on leading and directing agencies, units, and local authorities to deeply grasp the Party’s resolutions and directives on building defensive areas; the focus should be placed on Conclusion No. 64-KL/TW issued on October 30^th, 2019 by the Politburo (12^th tenure) on accelerating the implementation of Directive No. 28-NQ/TW of the Politburo (10^th tenure) dated September 22^nd, 2008 on “building provinces and municipalities into solid defensive areas in the new situation”, Decree No. 02/2016/NĐ-CP issued on January 5^th, 2016 by the Government on Civil defence and Decree No. 21/2019/NĐ-CP issued on February 22^nd, 2019 on defensive areas so that a big step will be made on awareness and responsibility of all levels of authorities, branches, local forces and the whole people towards the building and operation of defensive areas in the new situation. Besides, the province should step up the propagation and education of politics and thoughts within the whole Party Committees, the people, and the armed forces on the tasks of military, national defence, and Fatherland protection;  and great importance should be put on defence and security education for any subjects and the whole people. The leadership and direction of Project No. 11-ĐA/TU issued on August 8^th, 2018 by the Provincial Paty committee on “Building and cultivating young cadres, female cadres, and ethnic minority cadres under the management of the Standing Board until 2030, in a vision to 2035”, building the contingent of cadres, party members, and functionaries with good qualities and morality, wholesome lifestyles and good expertise to satisfy the requirement of tasks.

Additionally, the province should step up implementing Resolution No. 71/NQ-HĐND issued on December 16^th, 2020 by the Provincial People’s Council (18^th tenure) on approving several projects on developing education and training in Yen Bai in the 2021 – 2025 period, improving the quality of education and the programme “Internet and computers for children”, etc. until 2025, striving toward 100% of preschools and upper secondary schools recognised as national standard schools. Accelerating the implementation of Resolution No. 62-NQ/TU issued on October 26^th, 2021 by the Provincial Party Committee on improving the quality of protecting and taking care of people’s health in the 2021-2025 period, with the orientation to 2030, maintaining health care and regulations to flexibly adapt and effectively control the Covid-19 pandemic. Focus should be put on the Army’s family support policies, the work of “Repaying gratitude”, supporting the people in economic development, hunger eradication, and poverty alleviation; and the implementation of the movement “All people unite to build cultural lifestyles in neighborhoods” should be attached to movement “All people unite to build new rural areas and civilsed urban areas”, etc. to reach broad consensus with the party committees, local authorities and the people to build solid provincial defensive areas.

In line with the building of politico-spiritual potentialities, the province should attach importance to enhancing economic, scientific, and technological. Accordingly, combining economic development with national defence and security should be proactively conducted right from the start of the developing strategies, master plans, and plans on socio-economic development of the departments, branches, and the locality. Notably, the province, in the recent years, has implemented drastic and synchronous measures to exploit potentialities and strong points in developing socio-economy, formulated appropriate mechanisms and policies, mobilised the sources of economic sectors to develop infrastructures, industrial zones and clusters, and craft villages, encouraging investments to develop industries and cottage industries, restructure labour force, generate jobs, increase income, alleviate poverty, and maintain political stability from grassroots. So far, projects that have been carried out include Southern, Minh Quan, and Au Lac Industrial zones, Bao Hung, Yen The, Thinh Long, etc. industrial clusters, and factories manufacturing stretch films, packages, calcium carbonate, etc. The traffic systems, especially the routes that connect National Highway 32C with Hanoi- Lao Cai Expressway, National Highway 32C with Provincial Highway 172, 173, etc. are of dual-use value which serves the socio-economic development and ensures the accomplishment of defence and security tasks. To bring into play those outcomes, the province should keep on conducting strategic breakthroughs to build socio-economic infrastructure and develop urban areas, mobilising and effectively utilise sources of investment to develop traffic systems, information, telecommunication, irrigation, etc. to ensure people’s daily activities in peacetime and readiness to be mobilised in case of military emergency. Besides, the province should synchronously and effectively implement projects and policies on supporting the development of agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, the projects in the value chain and the OCOP programme to enhance the people’s material and spiritual lives, maintain rural security and political stability.

To ensure that every stride is a leap of enhancing defence and security potentialities, the Provincial Military Command along with functional agencies should bring into play its core role in evaluating and supervising the plans and projects for socio-economic development, especially in key localities. The Command should also advise the province to accelerate research and application of advanced science and technology to production and business administration, step up the implementation of the Project on building smart urban areas in association with local e-governance, perform close inspection and supervision on quality measurement standards and intellectual property development, etc. to create a breakthrough in developing socio-economy, strengthen the potentialities of materials, science, and technology in the defensive areas.

Building potentialities and military posture is a core content in organising and operating defensive areas. Being fully aware of this matter, the province should attach importance to strengthening the potentialities in defensive areas, the focus is on building a solid military posture and local armed forces. Closely adhering to the echelon’s resolutions, directives, and instructions, over the past time, the Command has actively advised the Provincial People’s Committee to complete Plan to land use for defence in the 2016-2020 period with orientation to 2025, Plan on military posture in defensive areas in the 2021-2025 period. Based on the ratified plans, branches and localities have actively mobilised resources to invest in building defence works, especially important constructions in bases, attached importance to utilising and promoting the advantages of terrain in combination with new constructions to save budget. The Provincial Military Command, currently, is paying attention to advising the province to check and rectify Master Plan on combining national defence with socio-economic development until 2035 to fit the plan to develop Con Minh – Lao Cai – Hanoi – Hai Phong – Quang Ninh economic corridor. It is necessary to consolidate, strengthen and improve the operational effectiveness of defensive areas, particularly the Steering Board for the building of defensive areas and Supply Council. Also, great importance should be put on stringently managing the reserve of materials and logistics to be ready for combat under echelon’s orders and plans for mobilisation of human forces and materials to meet the demands of ensuring national defence in the first year of war. Additionally, the province should attach significance to leading the building of local armed forces including standing forces, reserved forces, and self-defence forces with proper quantity and structure, high synergy and combat power. In particular, great importance should be placed on resource concentration to accelerate the implementation of the Project on modernising the equipment for special forces, amoured units, and self-defence forces to conduct the tasks of preventing and fighting natural disasters, incidents, forest fires, etc. The implementation of “3 breakthroughs” should be directed by agencies and units to bring about a significant shift in discipline as well as improve the quality of training and managing weapons and technical equipment. It is required to design, amend and complete combat documents, and plans for coordination among the Army and Public Security in accordance with Decree No. 03/2019/NĐ-CP of the Government; closely organise training and exercises as stipulated, and enhance the administration of activities in defensive areas of commands at all levels and the capacity of combat coordination among agencies, departments, branches, units and local forces in building up solid defensive areas to meet the requirements of building and protecting the Fatherland.

Senior Colonel TRAN CONG UNG, Standing Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Commander of the Provincial Military Command