Beijing: China on Wednesday announced a 7.2 percent increase in its national defence budget to USD 249 billion this year.
The planned defence expenditure for the country is 1.784665 trillion yuan (about USD 249 billion) this year, according to a draft budget report submitted to China’s Parliament by Premier Li Qiang.
Last year, China increased its defence budget by 7.2 percent to about USD 232 billion (1.67 trillion yuan) — over three times that of India — as it continues with the massive modernization of all its armed forces.
Nevertheless, China’s military spending remains the second largest behind the U.S. and it already has the world’s largest navy.
Tensions with the U.S., Taiwan, Japan and neighbors who share claims to the crucial South China Sea are seen as furthering growth in increasingly high-tech military technologies from stealth fighters to aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons.
The People’s Liberation Army — the military branch of the ruling Communist Party— has built bases on artificial islands in the South China Sea, but its main objective is asserting Chinese control over Taiwan, a self-governing democracy Beijing claims as its own territory that has close ties to the U.S.
China sent a relatively small contingent of just five planes and seven ships into territory near Taiwan on Wednesday, just days after send dozens of aircraft. Such missions are intended to demoralize and wear down Taiwan’s defenses, which have been bolstered by upgraded U.S. F-16s, tanks, and missiles, along with domestically developed armaments.
In his comments at the Congress, Premier Li Qiang told the nearly 3,000 party loyalists that China still preferred a peaceful solution to the Taiwan issue, but “resolutely opposes” those pushing for Taiwan’s formal independence and their foreign supporters.
