BEIJING: China announced Sunday (Mar 5) an increase in its military spending while warning of 'escalating' threats from abroad, at a meeting of its parliament that is set to hand Xi Jinpi
The increase in the world's second-largest defence budget came as China's leaders said it would aim for economic growth of around 5 per cent for the coming year - one of its lowest in decades.told delegates to the National People's Congress that"external attempts to suppress and contain China are escalating".The military, he added, must"devote greater energy to training under combat conditions, and ... strengthen military work in all directions and domains".
China staged war games near Taiwan last August to express anger at the visit to Taipei of then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. China, with the world's largest military in terms of personnel, is busy adding a slew of new hardware, including aircraft carriers and stealth fighters.Beijing says its military spending for defensive purposes is a comparatively low percentage of its GDP and that critics want to demonise it as a threat to world peace.
"As China strengthens the new area of cognitive warfare over Taiwan, I think it will also use the budget to build up its cyber and space capabilities, as well as its submarine forces to target undersea cables," he said. China has long argued that it needs to close the gap with the United States. China, for example, has three aircraft carriers, compared with 11 in active service for the United States.
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