 In 1995, the People's Republic of China adopted a new 5.8×42mm cartridge to match the modern trend in military ammunition, replacing the previous 7.62×39mm and 5.45×39mm round as standard.Later, even lighter carbines variants of many of these short-barreled assault rifles came to be adopted as the standard infantry weapon.In much modern tactical thinking, only a certain number of soldiers now need to retain longer-range weapons, these serving as designated marksmen.