One of the 2026 Beijing college entrance examination essay topics was "Making Plans and Putting in the Work." This year marks the opening year of the "14th Five-Year Plan" (十五五规划), and this essay topic carries considerable significance.
The writing prompt situates the topic in the context of a reading plan. In reality, whether for an individual's reading and personal growth or for national and social construction and development, good planning is required, with progress made step by step. At the same time, it requires each person to act on that plan and put in sufficient effort to ensure the plan is carried out in practice. For our military, doing well in the drafting and execution of the military's "15th Five-Year Plan" (十五五规划)—turning the blueprint into reality—is an important task for officers and soldiers throughout the entire military, and especially for leading cadres.
Chairman Xi has pointed out: "Formulating medium- and long-term plans to guide economic and social development is an important method by which our Party governs the country." During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, our military must, on the basis of achieving the centenary goal of army-building (建军一百年奋斗目标), forge ahead toward the goal of basically realizing the modernization of national defense and the military. Doing well in the drafting and execution of the military's "15th Five-Year Plan" is of great significance for advancing the cause of strengthening the military in the new era. Only by vigorously driving the implementation of the plan and turning the blueprint step by step into reality can the cause of strengthening the military in the new era be continuously pushed forward and the established goals and tasks be achieved on schedule. If plan execution is inadequate, even the finest blueprint is nothing but a flower in a mirror or the moon reflected in water.
Marx once said: "To win time is to win everything." In turning the blueprint into reality, one must maintain a sense of responsibility and urgency that brooks no delay and fights for every second. The drafting and execution of our military's "15th Five-Year Plan" is not a soft indicator but a hard constraint and a hard task—it cannot be treated vaguely in the slightest, nor delayed for even a moment. Failure to complete it will entail political and historical responsibility. This demands that we seize every moment and go all out, working backward from tasks, timelines, and schedules, rolling up our sleeves and working hard, so as to fulfill our mission and live up to the trust placed in us.
How one starts shapes the whole; how one takes the first step determines what follows. Ensuring a good start to the "15th Five-Year Plan" cannot be achieved without putting in painstaking effort, genuine effort, and meticulous effort. The plan is admirable, but turning it into reality cannot be accomplished easily or with fanfare—it requires far more arduous effort. It must be recognized in particular that our military still has shortfalls in system-of-systems operational capability (体系作战能力) and in the development of new-domain, new-quality combat forces (新域新质作战力量); there remain many difficult points, bottlenecks, and chokepoints in fully realizing the effectiveness of the new organizational structure, achieving integration and jointness of new forces, and building the combat capability of new equipment. Resolving these "tigers blocking the road" and "stumbling blocks" on the path forward requires leading cadres at all levels to anchor themselves to the plan, overcome difficulties, cut roads through mountains and build bridges over rivers, and open up new vistas for the development of the cause by relying on innovative thinking and scientific methods.
In driving the drafting and execution of our military's "15th Five-Year Plan," slow development will not do, and low quality is even less acceptable—the new development philosophy must be implemented and high-quality development achieved. If the quality of plan execution is low, it may affect the integrated advancement of combat, construction, and preparedness (战建备一体推进), causing great waste. Only by unswervingly following the path of high-quality development, upholding the combat effectiveness standard, adhering to intensive and efficient approaches, insisting on results orientation, and properly handling the relationships between progress and quality, cost and benefit, the overall situation and key priorities, development and oversight, and plan execution and capability formation, can we achieve quality assurance, capability assurance, and integrity assurance (质量托底、能力托底、廉洁托底) in national defense and military modernization during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, ensuring that the fruits of construction can withstand the test of history and actual combat.
Our military is the people's military; our national defense is an all-people national defense. The drafting and execution of our military's "15th Five-Year Plan" is highly systematic, involves many factors, and has broad implications—it cannot be accomplished without civil-military coordination and the combined efforts of the military and the people. As long as Party organizations and leading cadres at all levels firmly establish a sense of the overall situation, improve and refine civil-military coordination mechanisms, calculate the big accounts rather than the small ones, work in concert, and support one another, the grand blueprint will certainly be transformed into a beautiful reality, and the cause of strengthening the military will certainly display a magnificent panorama.