By Chang Meng and Li Xianghui

BEIJING, Jan. 19 -- Major Li Mengchun, a staff officer assigned to the PLA Army, was dispatched to a naval base of the PLA Northern Theater Command for cross-service joint training not long ago, realizing his dream of sailing to the high seas with naval warships.

"During the cross-training, I became familiar with the tactical and technical performance of the navy's main combat equipment, and also developed the thinking mode and communication habits of joint operations," Li said.

Such a new change is brought about by the exploration of joint operation talents cultivation in the PLA Northern Theater Command. Like Maj. Li, the staff officers with operational duty from the leading organs of the various services and the troops under the corps level within the PLA Northern Theater Command have been assigned to different services to conduct cross-training for several months in batches.

"Modern warfare is about joint operations, and it has higher requirements on the ability of staff officers in various services," said an officer of the Political Work Department under the PLA Northern Theater Command.

The PLA Northern Theater Command takes advantage of the theater-level joint operational command system to organize the cross-service training, which is designed to help the staff officers gain a better understanding of the functions, responsibilities, operating mechanisms of different services in the command system and comprehensively improve their joint operational command capacities, and lay a foundation for command control and close coordination among troop units of different services in the future joint operations.

It is learnt that the PLA Northern Theater Command will normalize the cross-service training for staff officers, and make the corresponding mechanism an effective way to cultivate the joint operations commanding talents.