China is investing heavily in its military
China plans to increase its military spending by 7.2 percent this year, according to a draft budget presented at the start of the 2023 session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. In front of nearly 3,000 delegates in the Great Hall of the People, Acting Premier Li Keqiang called for the expansion of the country’s armed forces, which should “increase their combat training and intensify their military capabilities to fulfill their tasks which were established for them by the Party and the people”. A Chinese official had previously justified the increase by the existence of “complex security challenges” and “responsibilities (that China has) as a great power”.
This year’s spending increase signals the priority that leader Xi Jinping has attached to upgrading China’s defense forces, even as flagging economic growth increases fiscal stresses. China is making a multidecade effort to build the People’s Liberation Army into what Beijing says will be a “world class” military by 2049, the centennial of the Communist Party’s coming to power. A government work report delivered Sunday by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called on the PLA to “carry out military operations, boost combat preparedness and enhance military capabilities so as to accomplish the tasks entrusted to them by the Party and the people.” The buildup is being closely tracked by Washington and its allies, which view China as the main challenger to the international order. U.S. officials say China’s growing military capabilities are increasingly threatening Taiwan, the self-governing island off the Chinese mainland over which Beijing claims jurisdiction. As part of its modernization drive in recent years, China has sought to create a leaner military, cutting hundreds of thousands of personnel during Mr. Xi’s time in office. Even so, it maintains an active-duty force of 2.2 million service members, according to the Pentagon’s latest annual report on the PLA’s development, released in November, making it one of the world’s largest standing militaries. China ranks second only to the U.S. in military spending in dollar terms, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. In 2021 it was roughly equal to 1.7% of its GDP, compared with the U.S.’s 3.5% that year, the most recent for which data is available, according to SIPRI. At a press conference on Saturday before the budget was released, a National People’s Congress spokesman said China’s growing military budget is “appropriate and reasonable.”
By Cora Sulleyman
