BEIJING - Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called for "expanding and deepening" the military's combat preparedness in his tour of the Lanzhou Military Area Command.

Xi, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission (CMC), visited troops stationed in northwest China ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, extending festival greetings to the military.

The leader inspected an air force base, the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and the Lanzhou Military Area Command on Feb 2 and Feb 4.

He stressed national defense efforts, urging the military to enhance its combat preparedness and constantly improve its ability to fulfill missions and tasks.

At the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Xi presented flowers at a monument dedicated to Marshal Nie Rongzhen and others who dedicated themselves to developing China's space technology in the 1950s and 1960s.

Xi encouraged technological workers to pursue excellence and carry forward the spirit of the country's older generations of scientists.

At the Lanzhou Military Area Command, Xi affirmed the military's role in safeguarding northwest China, as well as maintaining state security  and promoting regional stability.

Soldiers and officers in far-flung areas should be given more material and financial resources, Xi said, adding that unity between the army and the local government, as well as ethnic unity, should be strengthened.

In his December inspection of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Guangzhou military theater of operations, a term usually used to emphasize the coordination and joint operations by forces in air, land and sea, Xi ordered the PLA to intensify its "real combat" awareness in order to sustain military readiness.

He also ordered to build a powerful and technological missile force, while meeting the delegates attending a conference of the PLA Second Artillery Force in early December.

Also on Wednesday, CMC Vice Chairman Fan Changlong called on military officers to adopt "real combat criteria" in military training so as to meet future wartime needs in the information age.

Fan urged the military to innovate training by helping officers and soldiers to master information technology, as well as use IT-based weaponry, in order to modernize the PLA.