This paper deals with the evolution of China's military strategy after 1949 with emphasis on extended and internal factors which has shaped the thinking as well as the perception of threats and interests through out the period of different leadership. Clearly, Mao's military strategy was largely shaped by his people's war concepts developed in the revolutionary and civil war era, and has been continuously emphasized against the background of the backwardness of Chinese economy and cold war politics. Deng Xiaoping succeeded Mao in late 1970s and improvised Mao's people's war strategy with emphasis on modernization and upgrading PLA's Fighting capabilities in order to meet the new responsibility of protecting the national interests of economic reform and development. Jiang Zemin in the 1990s began to push forward the modernization process, with an emphasis on the ability of fighting and winning high-tech regional war.This strategy has been adopted in order to uphold China's territorial integrity and its growing interest in turning China into a regional and world power.