The guideline was formulated in accordance with article 78, the armed forces criminal law.

The guideline stipulates the categories, scopes and levels of military secrets and defense secrets. The state-secrets protection law and its related laws and regulations will stipulate other information, which is not stipulated by this guidance.

The Military secrets referred in this guidance are secrets that have direct connections with military operations. It is imperative to protect secrets to ensure military security or interests. Military secrets also include documents, pictures, messages electro magnetic records or items, which are designated with confidential levels by laws and regulations.
The Defense secrets referred in this guidance are secrets other than military secrets. It is imperative to protect secrets to ensure defense security and interests. The Ministry of National Defense governs defense secrets and authorizes confidential levels to documents, pictures, messages electro magnetic records and items by laws and regulations.

The categories of military secrets include personnel, intelligence, operations and trainings, military armaments, organization and military readiness preparation, communications, information and electronics, and comptroller.
The categories of defense secrets include personnel, intelligence, operations and trainings, military armaments, organization and military readiness preparation, defense mobilization, communications, information and electronics, and comptroller.

The Personnel categories of military secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）Personnel information of commanding officers at
brigade level and above during war footing.
Paragraph（2）Force strength, force requirement and replenishment plan during war footing.
Paragraph（3）Statistics regarding casualties and losses of personnel during war footing.
Paragraph（4）Personnel information of special intelligence agents.

The Intelligence categories of military secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）Military intelligence, counter intelligence agency, units' training plans, actions, results, training researches, bases, equipment, facilities and utilization reviews.
Paragraph（2） Intelligence for military operations, counter intelligence assessments, plans, orders, gazette and reports.
Paragraph（3）Military intelligence, counter intelligence guidance, standing operational procedures and communications methods.
Paragraph（4）Military used topology, tactical pictorial data, pictorial files, satellite imagery, maps and aerial pictures.

The Operation and training categories of military secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）Operational plans, orders and implementation procedures during war footing.
Paragraph（2）Order of battle or task organization including subordinate systems, units' designations, garrison locations, services and branches, force strength and number of personnel during war footing.
Paragraph（3）Decisions to combat situations, operational guidance and operational missions at various levels when conducting war-fighting missions.
Paragraph（4）Military mobilization preparation plans, force mobilization preparation plans and implementation plans, military service personnel augmentation preparation plans, and implementation procedures and effectiveness review reports of implementation plans.
Paragraph（5）Operational command or the operational procedures and operational command of operational center, or combat intelligence information systems and command posts at various levels and operational locations.
Paragraph（6）Military exercise plans, exercise subjects, exercise implementation status, superior officers' inspections and result reviews.
Paragraph（7）Training results of various levels and effectiveness reviews.
Paragraph（8）Test and evaluation of new weapons systems, conversion plans, implementation status and effectiveness reviews.

The Military armament categories of military secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）Major weapons systems, integrated logistics support and inventory and availability of combat readiness supplies.
Paragraph（2）Information regarding acquisition, technology transfer, and export control of high-tech military items, and evaluation repots of tactical flight trainings.
Paragraph（3）The construction and disposition of key military infrastructures, structure hardness, bombing resistance and electro magnetic protection capabilities.

The Organization and military readiness preparation categories of military secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）Institutions at various levels, units' organization and their content.
Paragraph（2）Concept of military build up, force structuring, administration policy plans, implementation and evaluation reports.
Paragraph（3）Acquisition of major weapons systems and the objective directions for related case building investment, operational requirement documents, systems analysis reports, investment outline plans, general work plans, annual work plan and implementation.

The Communications, information and electronics categories of military secrets:
Paragraph（1）Operational assessments, plans, orders, combat readiness, protection efforts, tests and evaluations of communications and electronics,
electronic warfare and information warfare.
Paragraph（2）Key technologies, electro magnetic parameters, networks, systems, circuit diagrams, frequency, emission power, coverage and transmission of communications and electronics, electronic warfare and information warfare equipment.
Paragraph（3）Information regarding IP addresses for communications, encrypted code manual, IFF, specifications, system security verifications and tests.
Paragraph（4）Information regarding security equipment manufacture and security software management, secret logic and security software development, and the identification of encrypted code set.
Paragraph（5）The operational effectiveness verification, evaluation and analytical reports of communications and electronics, electronic warfare and information warfare.

The comptroller categories of military secrets consist of the data analysis and documents of military secrets budget (budgetary estimates) allocations, executions, final accounts and statistics for article 5 to article 10.

The personnel categories of defense secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）Information regarding national defense personnel quality statistics and analytical reports.
Paragraph（2）Security check efforts, information of personnel and security check for flag and general officers.

The intelligence categories of defense secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）The collections, analyses, researches and utilization of international intelligence and technological research intelligence.
Paragraph（2）The intelligence exchange, exchange training programs, visits, intelligence exchange conferences and various kinds of intelligence cooperation between intelligence agencies and friendly countries.
Paragraph（3）The content of strategic intelligence assessment.
Paragraph（4）The intelligence gazettes regarding defense secrets and interests or information related to investigations of psychology, physical sabotage and violations of secret stipulations.

The operations categories of defense secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）Operational reports and decisions of defense operations for command posts and operational centers at various levels.
Paragraph（2）Combat readiness plans, force deployment, implementation status and result reviews for combat units.
Paragraph（3）The content of plans, implementation status and result reviews for joint training exercise with friendly countries.
Paragraph（4）The operational procedures prior to the President's review of units.

The military armament categories of defense secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）Military supply attrition, replenishment and stocks, locations, transportation, security facilities and deployment of security forces.
Paragraph（2）Any unreleased information pertaining to key equipment, technical information, production capability and sales for defense technology industry cooperation.
Paragraph（3）The tests, evaluation and analytical reports of key military items.

The organization and military readiness preparation categories of defense secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）The organization and force structure of military readiness preparation and the research projects for weapons systems requirement adjustment and planning.
Paragraph（2）The content of issues of military agreement singed by our country and other countries.
Paragraph（3）The information regarding the almanac and important program records for each service and unit.

The defense mobilization categories of defense secrets include expropriation and requisition by purchase for military material, military transportation mobilization, military material industry mobilization preparation plans, related implementation plans, implementation status and effectiveness review reports.

The communications, information and electronics categories of defense secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）The acquisition and maintenance of communications and electronics equipment for each branch, intelligence collection and utilization of communications and electronics technology, replenishment for electronic warfare equipment, and spectrum management, analysis and utilization.
Paragraph（2）The integrated utilization plans of command, control, communications, intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance and key software information.

The comptroller categories of defense secrets consist of the data analysis and documents of military secrets budget (budgetary estimates) allocations, executions, final accounts and statistics for article 12 to article 18.

The levels of military secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）Absolute top secret the breaches of confidentiality will cause extremely grave damage to the security of military operations or interests.
Paragraph（2）Top secret the breaches of confidentiality will cause grave damage to the security of military operations or interests.
Paragraph（3）Secret the breaches of confidentiality will cause damage to the security of military perations and interests.
The levels of defense secrets are as follows:
Paragraph（1）Absolute top secret the breaches of confidentiality will cause extremely grave damage to defense security or interests.
Paragraph（2）Top secret the breaches of confidentiality will cause grave damage to defense security or interests.
Paragraph（3）Secret the breaches of confidentiality will cause damage to defense security or interests.

The commence date this guideline shell be determined by the Ministry of National Defense.