The People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Political Department has ordered the army and armed police across the nation to discuss combat readiness and effectiveness, the PLA Daily reported on Tuesday.

The PLA Daily said the across-the-board discussion aims at instilling the concept of combat readiness, adding that the discussion will be the army's prime political task this year.

The PLA General Political Department has required military officers to learn modern military technologies and IT knowledge and to analyze what it takes to win a modern war.

The discussion will entail weeding out military practices that run counter to the "combat-readiness standard" and learning the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Military Commission (CMC) chairman Xi Jinping's remarks on national defense and army building, according to the PLA Daily.

Xi, who leads the country's reform on national defense and the armed forces, stressed that military reform should be guided by the objective of building a strong army at a key military reform meeting on Saturday.

With "being able to combat and win battles" as the focus, Xi said at the meeting the reform should target key problems in strengthening combat preparedness and weak links in honing combat effectiveness.