"In building up our army into a modern one, we must absorb and carry on the essence of our army and should on no account throw away our "invaluable assets." In line with the current actual conditions, we should enrich and develop these fine traditions so as to suit the needs of modernizing our army under the new situation and to ensure the smooth development of the modernization."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yang_Shangkun