We must first admit that there are many differences between the Republic in the Yan Jinglao era and the Republic in the Wang Yuanqing era.

As mentioned above, Yan Jingyu mainly did two things during his first term, one of which was to continue to promote political reform and strengthen the position of the democratic system in the political system of the Republic. Influenced by this, by the time of the new year, whether Yan Jingyu came forward in person or the deputy head of state Pei Chengyi, if the supreme authority of the Republic, that is, the General Assembly, passed the Stockholm Convention, which has a significant influence, we must try to convince enough representatives.

The problem is here. In this plenary congress, soldiers or representatives with military backgrounds account for a large proportion.

From this we can also see that the democratic political system of the Republic does have flaws, and it is a relatively serious flaw.

Regardless of the relationship between the Republic and the United States, it is necessary to recognize that the United States has a complete democratic system. In terms of the American political system, a good balance between centralization and democracy is formed. The focus is not how powerful the White House is. Instead, it has a sound parliament. In addition to the Senate and House of Representatives established due to national conditions, the way US members of Congress is also more reasonable. In other words, the term of office of members of the Senate and House of Representatives is wrongly wrong with the presidential term, which can effectively avoid the concentration of power in a certain person or a political party, so that the opposition parties still have the ability to live in the country, especially in some major matters that require absolute majority support.

It is obvious that there are still problems with this system in the Republic.

It is precisely because of this that people had proposed that the parliamentary system of the Republic should be adjusted, either establish a second House of Representatives, or delay the election of representatives, and stagger the election of the state leaders, so as not to seize all the power of the Republic in a certain period, thereby causing the Republic to go astray. However, at that time, whether it was Gu Weimin, Yan Jingyu, or Ye Zhisheng, it was impossible for him to support such a proposal. When hundreds of representatives jointly proposed to modify the parliamentary system, Yan Jingyu made a promise to carry out the second round of political reforms during his administration, and to implement a new electoral system and parliamentary system.

It is obvious that Yan Jingyu put the time for parliamentary reform after Kunnian.

If everything goes well, a new election law will be introduced over the years and a new parliamentary system will be implemented through constitutional amendment.

The problem is that in the year of the year, Yan Jingyu and Pei Chengyi still had to face the soldiers' watch.

It can be said that this is the real key point.

Until the end of the old month of the year, the General Assembly of the Republic did not reach an agreement on the Stockholm Agreement. Although about one-third of the representatives supported the agreement, believing that conventional military forces should be restricted from national interests, more than half of the other two-thirds believed that the agreement harmed national interests and posed a substantial threat to national security. The Republic had no reason to sign such an agreement. In this way, the representatives who opposed the agreement exceeded those who supported the agreement, and the representatives who did not express their opinions continued to wait and see and would not make a decision easily because of the attitudes of the heads of state and the deputy heads of state.

This is also the "result" of the second round of political reform

In any case, the representatives of the Plenary Congress of the Republic have become more independent.

Take the members of the Military Commission for example. Although these representatives have a good relationship with Pei Chengyi, some even have close contacts with Pei Chengyi in private, such as leaving Sanjian Group in Mengnian and being elected as representatives of the All Congress in Yuenian. And Lin Muxun, who was elected as the top seat of the Military Commission that year, was Pei Chengyi's friend and retired HNA General Zhu Ronghui, but whether it was Lin Muxun, Zhu Ronghui, or other representatives, they were very independent people and would never easily compromise on issues related to basic interests.

During the deliberation, Lin Muxun mentioned many times that the Stockholm Agreement is not an enforceable agreement.

In his opinion, the restrictions on the conventional military power of the Republic will inevitably be passed on to the Republic's military industry, thereby affecting the Republic's industrial system, economic development and science and technology, and ultimately damage the Republic's comprehensive national strength and lose its status as the number one power. More importantly, the US Congress has been reluctant to approve the agreement, which is clearly looking at the Republic's actions, so the Republic has no reason to be ahead of the United States.

According to Lin Muxun's proposal, before signing the agreement, the Republic must conduct unilateral negotiations with the United States to implement arms control rules. For example, while the Navy uses the total tonnage of warships as the standard, it must also clarify the proportion of various ships, the upper limit of single ship displacement, the specific number of ship types, etc. The situation of the Army, Air Force, Sky Army and Marine Corps is the same. It must not damage the Republic's national defense power and threaten the Republic's national security by a general and vague agreement.

As the chairman of the Military Commission, Lin Muxun has a great say.

Everyone knows that in Tiannian, when the third phase of the London Treaty was about to begin, it would be too late to talk to the United States about conventional arms control. The problem is here, that is, Lin Muxun’s purpose is not to ask the Republic’s authorities to negotiate with the United States, but to use a secret agreement with the United States to make the Stockholm Agreement an agreement that does not bind the Republic. You should know that Lin Muxun’s primary identity is still the number one and the country’s number one. Not only is the world’s largest resource enterprise calculated based on the total market value, Sanjian Group is also the world’s number one enterprise, but also the largest arms enterprises in the Republic.

In fact, at the end of the year, the Republican authorities had secret contacts with the United States.

At that time, Pei Chengyi had just moved into the official residence of the deputy head of state, and the first thing he did after taking office was to tell Yan Jingyu clearly that the Stockholm Agreement was difficult to obtain support at the General Assembly. As a soldier, he commanded the Republic's army to win several wars. Before taking off his military uniform, soldiers could not participate in the election of the head of state and deputy head of state. Therefore, Pei Chengyi officially retired in July 2019 and became the Minister of National Defense in the old year. Pei Chengyi was very clear about the domestic situation of the Republic, especially the impact of the military industrial group on the political system of the Republic. It can be said that many years ago, Wang Yuanqing was able to take action with Japan at the beginning of his tenure, which was closely related to the support of the military industrial group. Not to mention other things, during the Japanese war, Lin Yanbo was the leader of

A group of republic merchants donated trillions of war funds to the country, otherwise the republic would not have defeated Japan in just a few months. If we go further, during the Peninsula War during the Zhao Rundong period, and even during the East China Sea War during the Jijiu Kingdom period, the republic's arms merchants participated in the battle and supported the fierce battle of the Republic's army in various ways. This is why, by the middle of the century, almost no one dared to doubt the influence of arms merchants in the Republic's political system, otherwise there would not have been so many military representatives in the election of the new year. As the threat of war approached again, regardless of whether the republic authorities recognized it, the status of arms merchants was once again improved. They had the right to speak no less than that of the head of state in the political life of the country and major strategic decisions.

It was at Pei Chengyi's suggestion that the Republic and the United States first made bilateral contacts.

In fact, the US authorities are also facing the same problem, that is, the US Congress cannot sign an arms control agreement that will reduce the conventional military power of the United States by 30%. In this way, if the US president wants to convince the big men in Congress, he can only try to reach a secret agreement with the Republic and do some tricks on conventional arms control.

In this case, the two sides hit it off and agreed on some key issues soon.

Take the size of the naval fleet as an example. The Stockholm Agreement clearly stipulates the nature of warships and divides the types of warships. However, there is no restriction on non-combat ships other than warships. For example, there is no restriction on the number and scale of transport ships and supply ships. In this way, both the Republic and the United States can make a fuss on this issue, and that is, some ships with combat capabilities will be sent to the ranks of non-combat ships. In peacetime, weapons are not equipped, but

During the war, it will be equipped with weapons. The most representative one is naturally the "maritime platform" system. If the system is disassembled, each component is non-combat ship. Only in a combined state can it have the ability to support naval aviation and become a typical combat ship. In this way, the Republic and the United States can fully design transport ships according to the standards of the system, and at most restrict the combined part. By simply improving it during the war, it can become a combat ship.

There are many similar problems, such as the army's forces do not include militia and reserves, and the air force fleet does not include sealed fighter jets with reuse capabilities. As for the proportion of the military needs of the Sky Army, because there is no clear regulation on the specific methods of national defense expenditures in various countries, there are also loopholes to exploit.

In short, as long as the Republic and the United States are willing, the Stockholm Agreement will become a pile of waste paper.

When it comes to the issue of comprehensive disarmament, it is certainly impossible for the two superpowers to decide. In any case, big powers like Russia and France also have the ability to supervise the Republic and the United States to conduct conventional disarmament, so if the Republic and the United States want to make private transactions, they have to drag Russia and France. In any case, the main value of the Stockholm Agreement is not to limit the conventional military power of major powers, but to initiate the third phase of the London Treaty cuts, making the comprehensive destruction of nuclear weapons from theory to reality, and to consolidate the hegemony of the great powers. Although from the standpoint of Russia and France, the Stockholm Agreement still has great value. At least it is an important guarantee for its status as a great power. However, when the Republic and the United States legislature are unwilling to approve the agreement, Russia and France have to make concessions and turn a blind eye on certain specific issues.

By July 2019, the Republic, the United States, Russia, and France had basically reached an agreement on the specific implementation clauses of the Stockholm Agreement, that is, to adjust the verification methods to reduce the requirements for disarmament. According to the final agreement, the verification work will be undertaken by the agency jointly established by the Decorational Contracting Kingdom, and the verification work will be arranged in advance, that is, to make an appointment first and then verify. Unlike the provisions in the Treaty of London, all Decorational Contracting Kingdoms have the right to verify and do not need to make an appointment for verification. In short, relaxing the verification efforts is equivalent to reducing the requirements for arms control.

More importantly, this change is only targeted at four major powers, while other countries that play the contract do not enjoy such privileges. The reason is very simple. The agreement verification agency mainly relies on the information provided by the four major powers, and this information mainly comes from the military reconnaissance satellite system of one major power. In other words, whether the country has fulfilled its arms control obligations in accordance with the treaty is not the final decision of the two parties. Instead, it is the final decision of one major power. Because the power of the Republic and the United States to reject the old votes, the benefits obtained by the two superpowers are the most obvious.

In any case, it is not a bad thing to properly relax conventional military forces with the fundamental purpose of achieving nuclear disarmament.

However, if such a secret agreement is to take effect, legal procedures are still required. Unlike the public agreement, the four major powers only require review and approval by the parliamentary military committee without obtaining higher authorization. In this way, the probability of the secret agreement taking effect has been greatly increased. Because this secret agreement is related to the Stockholm Agreement, the Republic and the US authorities submitted it to the parliamentary military committee in the old month of the year. It is precisely because the Republic and the US authorities both sent a signal to the parliamentary military committee at the end of the month. At the end of the month, they asked the Parliament to vote on the Stockholm Agreement at the beginning of the month, and made it clear that if it was rejected, the government was likely to take special measures.

In short, neither the Republic nor the U.S. authorities want to turn the arms control agreement that has finally been negotiated into waste paper.

As mentioned earlier, it is not Yan Jingyu who is responsible for the control of conventional military forces in the Republic, but Pei Chengyi.

At the bottom of the bait, Pei Chengyi participated in the presidency of the Military Commission as the deputy head of state. He invited several other hearings composed of hundreds of representatives of the committee, explaining in detail how much the Stockholm Conventional Military Force Control Agreement has to the national interests of the Republic and to what extent the national interests of the Republic can be safeguarded, in order to convince those representatives who oppose the agreement.

It can be said that this is the highest-standard military-related hearing since the founding of the Republic.

Before this, only Wang Yuanqing gave detailed explanations to all members of the General Assembly as the head of state when promoting political reform. That special meeting was also the prototype of the hearing of the General Assembly of the Republic. And thus, the tradition formed, any major decisions needed to be debated in the form of a hearing, and the national leaders must clearly answer the questions raised by the representatives. The problem is that before this, military decisions were the privileges of the head of state, and even the military committee of the General Assembly had only the right to interfere with some secondary issues such as defense budget, military expenditure, and military personnel changes. Major events related to national strategic decisions would not follow this procedure. It can be said that this is a prominent feature of the progress of the Republic's political system. After all, military power is the most important one in state power.

At this hearing, Pei Chengyi gave a very clear reason, that is, he should not miss the last chance to stop the war.

As a national leader, in addition to the importance of conventional arms control, Pei Chengyi also made it clear that the arms control agreement itself is a multilateral international agreement. Even if the Plenary Congress of the Republic approves the agreement, it will not take effect as long as it is not approved by the US legislature, so there will be no impact on whoever approves first.

Of course, at this hearing, Pei Chengyi also made a clear explanation of the Republic's defense expenditure.

In general, this is a very meaningful hearing. Although in the eyes of the Republic's news media, Pei Chengyi's active promotion of the arms control agreement to be approved at the Plenary Congress is a direct manifestation of the Republic's active stopping the outbreak of war, in the eyes of many Western news media, the defense expenditure statement made by Pei Chengyi at the hearing is enough to prove that the Republic is preparing for the war. The arms control agreement has no binding force on the Republic. Otherwise, those representatives would not release the Stockholm Agreement, which had been delayed for several months after this hearing.

Not to mention Western news media, even Al Jazeera believes that Pei Chengyi sounded the horn of the battle in the name of arms control.

Among them, the most critical thing is the defense budget for the year. You should know that in the central fiscal budget passed at the end of July that year, the increase in the defense budget was more than the blur. At the beginning of the old month, the Ministry of Defense submitted an additional budget to the General Assembly with a total amount equivalent to the defense budget for the fiscal year. If this additional budget is passed, the increase in the defense budget for the Republic in the fiscal year will reach the highest level, which is the most in previous years. More importantly, the constraints on the military expenditure of the Sky Army in the Stockholm Agreement are based on the defense budget for the year when the treaty came into effect.

In other words, the Republic's authorities exploited loopholes in the agreement by increasing the defense budget within the year. Of course, this situation also exists among several other major countries. For example, Israel's defense budget growth in the year was as high as that of each country. The increase in the defense budget of the United States was also irrigated. The problem is that Pei Chengyi pointed out this problem at the full hearing, indicating that the Republic's authorities did not intend to curb the war.

From another perspective, there is no way to do this.

Not to mention anything else, if the Republican authorities do not increase defense spending in advance, the Stockholm Agreement will not come into effect.

Of course, for Pei Chengyi, this is just the beginning.
Chapter completed!