The Type 64 pistol was the first firearm to be indigenously developed by the People's Republic of China and was first only issued to high-ranking military officers and officials, but has since been distributed throughout the PLA.

[1] Ever since the expulsion of the Kuomintang government, concluding the Chinese Civil War, the People's Liberation Army relied heavily upon support from the Soviet Union for supplies and weaponry.

Following the Sino-Soviet split of the late 1950s to the 1960s, the Soviet Union withdrew its support for the Chinese Communist Party, leaving China to develop its arms industry itself.

With its introduction in 1980, the Type 64 became the first indigenously developed firearm created by the People's Liberation Army.

[2] With the introduction of newer, more modern pistols, such as the QSZ-92 in the 1990s, the Type 64 has been slowly been phased out of PLA service and is now only used by civilian police forces, who also intend to phase out the Type 64 within the coming years with a new, yet-unnamed 9mm revolver which was introduced in 2006.