ABSTRACT
Armed forces around the world play an increasingly important role in disaster-relief operations and constitute an integral part of their nation's disaster-management capacity. In the People's Republic of China (PRC), the role of the military in domestic disaster response is particularly prominent. Since 1949, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) 1 has been the central force in the nation's responses to natural disasters. Indeed the frequency, scale and types of the domestic disaster-relief works that the PLA has conducted have seldom been matched by military forces elsewhere. More significantly, despite China's military modernization over the past three decades focusing on strengthening the PLA's capabilities for fighting conventional wars, disaster-relief operations remain an important task for the military. In recent years, this type of operation has been further elevated as a primary mission for the PLA.
