Today, such enterprises have the capacity to produce more than 15,000 products for civilian use in over 50 categories. Products include those used in telecommunications, energy resources, transportation, textiles and other light industries, medicine and health, and engineering and building industries. Outputs of some products have made a substantial contribution to the nation's total, for example automobiles (9 percent), motorcycles (60 percent), freight trains (26 percent) and coal
excavation equipment (24 percent). In addition, these enterprises have used military facilities and technology to bring many products and projects from the drawing board to production including the Yun-5, Yun-7, Yun-8 and Yun-12 civil aircraft, the MD-82 and MD-90 large passenger airplanes (produced in cooperation with a foreign partner), the Galaxy-II supercomputer capable of handling 1 billion operations per second and its
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application software, the 300,000-KW Qinshan Nuclear Power Station, shuttle oil tankers, multi-function container ships, large air-cooled container ships and other new and hi-tech products. Between 1984 and 1994, China launched 11 satellites for civilian applications. Newly launched communications satellites have increased satellite television coverage in China to 82 percent. The meteorological satellite system has brought increased accuracy to weather forecasting, substantially rlducing economic losses due to natural calamities. Satellite remote sensing technology has produced great economic benefits.
China has established a centre for the application of the national defence technologies and a network to disseminate products and information in order to better convert such technologies to civilian use in a planned way. In the last dozen or so years, more than 2,500 defence technologies have been released for civilian use, greatly promoting technological progress and development in relevant fields.
The defence industry has cooperated extensively with foreign partners in developing products for civilian use.By 1994, over 300 such joint ventures had been established in China.
China's efforts to benefit mankind through military technology have drawn the attention of the international community. The seminars on the transfer of military technology to civilian use jointly held by China and the United Nations in Beijing and in Hong Kong received positive worldwide response. The declaration on such transfers issued by the 1993 Hong Kong seminar stated that world peace and sustained economic deveropment are the common wish of all the world's people; disarmament and peace are complementary, and the transfer of military technology to civilian use is
an indispensable link in the chain of promotion of disarmament, and the resulting promotion of peace and development.
The transfer of military technology to civilian use has contributed to national economic construction in China anal. moreover provided various countries in the world with successful experience for such conversion in peacetime.
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