Xi Jinping visits soldiers on duty at a border post in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Jan 26, 2014. "Today, I shall keep watch together with you," Xi told the soldiers. [Photo/Xinhua]

Civil-military integration is now a national strategy, and science and innovation have been given greater gravitas.

In the past five years, China's first domestically built aircraft carrier was launched; new transport aircraft and stealth jets were commissioned; and the latest missiles were unveiled. Military hardware research made various breakthroughs. The PLA is now a much leaner force with an optimized structure and more balanced services, one that takes strength less from its size, but more from its fighting capacity and efficacy.

Military experts believe the latest round of reform launched by Xi was the biggest change ever to the PLA.

Xi's affinity to the PLA dates back to his early days. Indeed, Xi is a PLA "veteran."

In 1979, straight after graduating from Tsinghua University, Xi joined the military, serving as secretary to the minister of national defense in the General Office of the CMC.

He was still often seen wearing his faded military uniform, sometimes with a matching kit bag, three years later when he became deputy Party chief of Zhengding county in Hebei province. As his work took him across the country in the following decades, Xi also held concurrent posts in the military. Even now, he still has a photo of himself in military uniform on his desk in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in downtown Beijing.

"Ever since I was young, I have learned much about PLA history and have admired the charm and charisma of the army's older generation of leaders," Xi once said. "My earnest attachment to the army dates back to my boyhood." But Xi does not just command the PLA from behind a desk.

Over the past five years, he had sat in the cockpit of the air force's latest aircraft, boarded the navy's newest submarine, and watched the training programs of ship-borne PLA aircraft.

His domestic inspection tours have taken him to islands, remote border passes, as well as the harsh Gobi Desert, and everywhere he went, he paid his respects to local troops.