China is to boost its defense spending by 7.2 percent this year, maintaining a steady growth rate as Beijing faces headwinds from three years of sluggish economic expansion amid mounting geopolitical challenges from Taiwan to Ukraine.
The increase, announced today in a government report due to be released in parliament, matches last year's figure.
Photo: Reuters
It remains well above China's economic growth target for this year of about 5 percent, which analysts say was expected and reflected Beijing's ambitions for continued military modernization amid roiling geopolitical challenges.
Since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) became president and commander-in-chief more than a decade ago, the defense budget has ballooned to 1.78 trillion yuan (US$245.65 billion) this year from 720 billion yuan in 2013.
Xi aims to complete full military modernization by 2035, with China's military developing new missiles, ships, submarines and surveillance technologies.
This year's report continues to stress the importance of combat readiness and scientific and strategic improvements, but also pledges to "continue improving the political conduct of the military" — an apparent reference to numerous corruption scandals affecting the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
Two former defense ministers and a Central Military Commission member have been among those removed in the past two years.
Regional military attaches are closely watching the budget and the report, with some noting that the combat readiness references would mean further intense drills and deployments around Taiwan and across the wider region.
Chinese naval ships staged an unprecedented live-fire drill in the Tasman Sea last month, forcing commercial aircraft to be diverted.
The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said in a survey last month of the world's militaries that given China's wider economic constraints, "authorities face increasingly sharp questions about which areas to prioritize."
China remains the world's second-biggest military spender behind the US, whose proposed military budget for this year is US$850 billion.
Taiwan-based security analyst Sung Wen-ti (宋文笛) said Beijing was eager to project stability with moderate language and stable defense budgeting, even as it grew in strength, in contrast with the US under new President Donald Trump.
"Beijing is trying to make acceptance of China as the relatively more predictable superpower easy as possible for others," said Sung, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS