China said its defense spending would grow by 7.2 percent this year — the fastest pace since 2019 amid increasing tensions with the US on a range of issues, including Taiwan.
The increase in the world’s second-largest defense budget came as Beijing announced an economic growth goal of about 5 percent for this year — one of its lowest in decades.
Military expenditure is expected to rise to 1.55 trillion yuan (US$224.4 billion) this year, according to the Chinese Ministry of Finance’s annual report released yesterday at the start of the Chinese National People’s Congress in Beijing.
Photo: AFP
It officially rose 7.1 percent last year.
Spending on China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has increased by at least 6.6 percent each year for the past three decades, keeping pace or often exceeding economic growth.
Outgoing Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) told congress delegates that “external attempts to suppress and contain China are escalating.”
“The armed forces should intensify military training and preparedness across the board,” he said as he presented the government’s annual work report to thousands of amassed delegates in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.
The military must “devote greater energy to training under combat conditions, and ... strengthen military work in all directions and domains,” he added.
China’s defense spending still pales in comparison with the US, which has allotted more than US$800 billion for its military this year.
The defense figure that China unveils every year is among the few official announcements that offer signs of progress the PLA is making in its revamp.
Analysts outside the nation say the actual amount far exceeds the official sum, partly because research and development expenditures are not included.
This year’s figure “feels in part a reflection of the growing increase in military spending we see globally and regionally, while also a reflection of increased sense of threat in Beijing and a need to be prepared for eventualities,” said Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
“Taiwan will clearly be seen as an important focus, but my view would be that Chinese preparations go farther than this and remain about building a globally competitive military,” Pantucci said.
Yesterday’s conservative economic goals followed China posting just 3 percent growth last year, widely missing its 5.5 percent target as the economy strained under the effects of strict COVID-19 containment policies and a property crisis.
Li struck a bullish tone in his speech, saying that China’s economy “is staging a steady recovery and demonstrating vast potential and momentum for further growth.”
The sustained growth in defense spending despite sagging economic expectations showed that “security is now much more important for the national leadership” than before, said Alfred Muluan Wu (吳木鑾), an associate professor at the University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
“It is even, to some extent, more important than economic growth,” he said.
China also plans to increase its public security budget by 6.4 percent — the fastest pace in five years. That rise comes after the Asian nation experienced its most widespread protests in decades in November last year due to broad discontent over harsh COVID-19 regulations.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS