Here’s What You Need to Know: Despite its success, in the end, the Type 81 was still a stopgap rifle. In the 1980s, China’s small arms were largely inferior to the United States and Russia. The PLA ...

The Type 81’s genesis began in the early 1980s. Around that time, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had been issuing their own indigenously designed and built Type 63 automatic rifle to soldiers.