The Finest Revolutionary Soldiers of the New Era | Running One's Own Leg of the Race on the Road to Joint Operations — A Profile of Li Can, "Finest New-Era Revolutionary Soldier"
In the height of summer, July, deep in the night. The clock hand passes midnight, yet a certain center of the Central Theater Command remains ablaze with light. On the electronic situation display screen, red and blue markers surge and interweave across the map, like waves of battle rolling through the dark. Staff officer Li Can fixes his gaze on the screen, fingertips sliding across it, freezing on a key node of a typical combat case, extracting a segment of on-the-spot decision-making of particular reference value and filing it into his combat case database…… This is an ordinary day for him, and the normal state of his work.
In 2023, through successive rounds of selection, Li Can was transferred from an Army battalion commander position into the Central Theater Command headquarters.
Yet standing in the Theater Command's joint operations command hall, watching screens filled with multi-service situational data, Li Can — well known within the Army as a top-ranked "martial champion (武状元)" — was seized by an acute sense of capability panic: "Before, it was enough to master knowledge within one's own service domain. Coming to the Theater Command, you have to understand and grasp all the knowledge involved in joint operations."
The "knowledge gaps" kept multiplying. Driven by the urgency of feeling that "one night's sleep might leave you behind," he adapted in the shortest possible time to the Theater Command's rhythm of "running to get up to speed" and "joining the fight on the move."
He became a "regular" at the joint lecture hall, and a "primary school student" chasing down the backbone personnel of every service branch to ask questions. His notebooks were filled, densely packed, with equipment parameters of every type, tactical logic, and key points for coordination.
Memorizing parameters alone was not enough. He flew alongside pilots in simulated training, crouched with armored companies running tactical deductions, and ran with signal troops through communications link debugging…… After that, he had traveled to nearly every front-line unit of every service branch within the theater's jurisdiction, rapidly updating his "brain" through learning. Over three years, he took the lead in conducting a comprehensive baseline survey of all-element combat readiness, gaining thorough familiarity with the principal terrain characteristics, equipment parameters, and coordination links.
"Studying warfare is not about flipping through military history or memorizing procedures." Having worked deeply in the field of warfare study, Li Can holds his own creed: "The traditional approach of studying combat cases in their entirety lets you learn the 'complete process,' but you cannot truly comprehend 'breaking through a desperate situation (绝境破局)'; you become familiar with 'how things go when they go smoothly,' but find it difficult to 'respond to changing circumstances (应对变局).'"
He broke down dozens of typical engagements and combat cases into hundreds of micro-scenarios of key decision-making: a split-second difference in situational judgment, the hairsbreadth trade-offs in resource allocation, second-level errors in coordination adjustments, and the design of contingency plans as a risk backstop — all were extracted individually and examined repeatedly.
For the same battlefield scenario, he repeatedly compared the different directions a battle could take under multiple decision options, mapping out with complete clarity the dividing line between victory and defeat, and the branching points of logic.
To keep his research from floating in the air, he investigated real conditions, solicited opinions, and embedded all research findings into actual plans, using the battlefield as the measuring stick for every detail.
During the preparation for a major mission in 2025, the first-round plan was nearly perfect under conventional conditions, yet Li Can furrowed his brow: "Of course there's no problem if nothing unexpected happens — but what you have to guard against is exactly the unexpected."
He stepped outside the assumptions of ideal conditions and smooth-running situations, sorted out more than a dozen categories of extreme contingencies, broke down the timeline for each category, pinpointed the risk nodes, and reverse-engineered the plan's architecture.
To verify the plan's reliability, he took the lead in organizing stress testing: stripping out key elements, disrupting the pace of execution, layering in successive special situations, forcing the system to expose its weaknesses and reverse-tracing the process to identify and fill gaps.
On the day of the mission, there were zero errors and zero omissions from start to finish, with coordination handoffs precise to the second.
The more solidly one plants one's feet in the direction of war-fighting, the faster new capabilities are generated——
He innovatively proposed a certain auxiliary aiming method that effectively resolved the problem of artillery night-aiming points being easily exposed, improving the efficiency of artillery night fire strikes.
The "tactical map-marking integrated work ruler (战术标图综合作业尺)" he independently developed integrates the commonly used map-marking tools of every service branch, substantially improving the speed and precision of manual map marking.
The multi-dimensional dynamic calibration mechanism he pioneered gives commanders a more reliable basis for coordinating forces and allocating resources.
After years of deep work in joint operations, Li Can has identified a pattern: the winning formula (制胜密码) of joint operations lies in "synchronization, connectivity, and integration (同步、贯通、一体)."
To break through the problems of vertical desynchronization and loose lateral coordination, Li Can traveled to headquarters at every level, grassroots units, and duty posts, collecting practical operational suggestions, and innovatively introduced a certain multi-echelon synchronous coordination work mode (多级同步统筹工作模式), enabling higher-level intent to reach the front line directly and front-line conditions to be fed back in real time, improving the quality and efficiency of operational planning and command.
Facing the tide of intelligentized warfare (智能化战争), Li Can has always maintained a clear-headed awareness.
"Intelligent tools are an aid; they cannot replace the human brain's on-the-spot judgment." Li Can said. In the development of joint operations command, he not only uses intelligent simulation for verification but also insists on manual review at key junctures, correcting deviations and loopholes on multiple occasions.
Li Can's insistence on getting plans exactly right is well known throughout the Theater Command.
During one intensive plan-drafting period, he worked through hundreds of thousands of characters of tactical method case studies, restructured the contingency plan system, deleted multiple redundant sections, added multiple practical combat-handling measures, and produced a practical blueprint for grassroots officers and soldiers in combat readiness preparation.
As a backbone professional, Li Can not only studies and plans for war himself but has also proactively taken on the role of "guide" for new staff officers, frequently taking the initiative to approach them, teaching hands-on and mentoring face-to-face.
In April of this year, the Theater Command organized a joint operations staff officer skills competition and assessment. Li Can proactively took the lead in organizing preparation for the competition, and in the end, four members of his group were commended as "Top Ten Outstanding Staff Officers."
Over 21 years of military service, Li Can has participated in nearly 30 major exercises and training events, been commended as an "Outstanding Staff Officer of the Whole Army (全军优秀参谋)," and awarded first-class merit once, second-class merit twice, and third-class merit twice. This year, Li Can was selected as a 2026 New-Era Youth Vanguard (新时代青年先锋) and commended as a 2026 "Finest New-Era Revolutionary Soldier (最美新时代革命军人)."
Faced with these honors, he has always maintained the purity and clear-headedness he had when he first entered the military.
"The joint staff officer is a critical link in achieving joint victory." He said. "As joint staff officers, we must strive to run our own leg of the race on the road to joint operations."
(Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, August 2)