President Xi Jinping on Tuesday inspected the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy Marine Corps in Chaozhou, south China's Guangdong Province, and stressed building it into an elite troop.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, speaks while inspecting the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy Marine Corps on Oct. 13, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), said the PLA Navy Marine Corps is an elite combat force for amphibious operations, and it shoulders the important duties of safeguarding the country's sovereignty security, territorial integrity, maritime interests, and overseas interests.

He called for enhanced efforts to advance the force's transformation and improve its combat capabilities to forge a powerful troop, with battlewise soldiers, which is integrated and versatile in operation, swift in response, and capable of fighting under multi-dimensional conditions.

On Tuesday morning, Xi visited the headquarters of the Marine Corps, met with leading officers and had a group photo with them.

The Marine Corps was reorganized and established in 2017 to implement the policy and deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC to deepen the reform on national defense and the armed forces.

Xi was briefed on the situation of the Marine Corps and watched training videos of relevant task teams.

He gave full recognition to the Marine Corps on the construction, development and task fulfillment since its reorganization and establishment.

Xi delivered an important speech after the briefing, highlighting the need to strengthen strategic design for the construction of the Marine Corps.

The strategic design should fit with the country's strategies of national development, security and military, strategic arrangements of modernized national defense and military, as well as the construction of the joint operations systems and transformation of the navy, Xi said.

Xi required efforts to figure out the goal, direction, path and focus of the Marine Corps's construction.

The Marine Corps should focus on war preparedness and combat capabilities, and maintain a high level of readiness, Xi said, adding that the force should stick to combat-oriented training and strengthen mission-oriented training tailored to the specific needs and force-on-force training.

Xi underscored the importance of innovations in combat theories, training modes and task force formations to improve military training and combat capabilities.

Xi also stressed upholding the absolute Party leadership over the armed forces, ensuring that the military must be loyal, pure and reliable.

In the face of the uncertainty amid the epidemic control situation, Xi urged not letting up on any front of the long-term fight against COVID-19, while applying a combination of measures in all respects to make progress in strengthening the armed forces.