China will raise defense spending “about 7 percent” this year as it guards against “outside meddling” in its disputed regional territorial claims, a top official said yesterday, in an apparent reference to Washington.
Just days after US President Donald Trump outlined plans to raise US military spending by about 10 percent, Chinese National People’s Congress spokeswoman Fu Ying (傅瑩) told reporters that Chinese expenditures will depend on US actions in the region.
“We call for a peaceful settlement through dialogue and consultation [of the territorial disputes]. At the same time we need the ability to safeguard our sovereignty and interests and rights,” Fu told a news conference ahead of the rubber-stamp parliament session. “In particular, we need to guard against outside meddling in the disputes.”
Photo: AP
The annual news briefing comes a day ahead of today’s opening of the congress.
Fu did not specify what “meddling” she was referring to, but Beijing’s increasingly assertive stance towards its claims in the South and East China seas have stirred alarm in the region and prompted criticism from Washington.
The planned spending increase is in line with last year, when the government said last year’s outlays would increase by 6.5 to 7 percent.
Last year’s figure marked the first time in six years that spending growth did not rise into double figures.
China is engaged in a decades-long build-up and modernization of its once-backward armed forces as it seeks military clout commensurate with its economic might.
However, its military capabilities remain modest compared with the US, Fu said, adding that concerns about the country’s military buildup are unwarranted.
“China has never caused harm to anyone, to any country,” she said.
However, recent reports that Beijing might be militarizing artificial islands in the South China Sea have raised concerns in Washington, which has long argued China’s activities in the region threaten freedom of navigation through the strategically vital waterways, sending ships and aircraft to pass close to the growing islands.
Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have contested Beijing’s claims.
Recent satellite imagery indicates China is completing structures intended to house surface-to-air missiles on a series of such artificial landmasses, the Washington think tank Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said last week.
Future trends in the region “will depend on US intentions vis-a-vis the region and US activities [which] to a certain extent set the barometer for the situation here,” Fu said. “Probably fundamentally the US is concerned that China may catch up with it in terms of capability, but we are a developing country. There is a huge gap between China and the US in capability.”
Chinese state media recently said that China was testing the latest version of its fifth-generation stealth fighter, part of a campaign to end the West’s monopoly on the world’s most advanced warplanes.
China also for the first time sent its sole aircraft carrier into the Pacific Ocean for exercise in December last year, according to Chinese reports.
Barthelemy Courmont, a senior Research Fellow at the Paris-based French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs said it was understandable that a modernizing China would seek more advanced armed forces.
However, “this development also reflects Beijing’s ambition to impose its supremacy over Asia by giving itself the means of being a credible power,” he said.
He said that the territorial tensions were leading to a “senseless arms race” in the region. “It’s often in reaction to China’s spending increases that neighboring countries also decide to strengthen their military capacities,” he said.
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)