Washington: PLA will want China’s military budget to match or exceed last year’s 7.5 per cent growth rate as tensions mount on several fronts and relations between Beijing and Washington worsen, media reports said quoting PLA sources.
Beijing says it also faces threats from pro-independence forces in Taiwan, separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang.
China’s military leaders are fighting for a substantial increase in their budget to be announced at the National People’s Congress arguing that the world’s largest standing army needs more resources to cope with volatile challenges at home and overseas. But top of the list is the growing confrontation with the US.
China-US relations have hit a low amid trade war, spats over civil liberties and Taiwan, and conflicts over Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. Add to that accusations flying between Washington and Beijing about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.
From Beijing’s viewpoint, the military threats are surfacing on its doorstep with US bombers running about 40 flights over contested areas of the South China and East China seas so far this year, or more than three times the number in the same period of 2019. US Navy warships have sailed four “freedom of navigation operations” in the area in the same period, compared with eight in all of last year.
“Beijing feels security threats posed by the US and other foreign countries are increasing, so the People’s Liberation Army wants a budget increase to support its military modernisation and combat-ready training,” said Song Zhongping, a Hong Kong-based military commentator and former officer in the PLA.
China announced defence spending of 1.18 trillion yuan (US$176 billion) at the NPC in March 2019, which is the world’s second largest. But the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates China’s defence spending at US$261 billion, which is a little over one-third that of the US$732 billion of the US.
President Xi Jinping, who chairs the all-powerful Central Military Commission, ordered the PLA on January 2 to boost its combat capacity as relations worsened with Washington. That was a repeat of Xi’s “be ready to win wars” order when he laid out his military expansion plan to the Communist Party’s national congress in 2017. The message has not changed.
