China announced plans on Wednesday to increase its defense spending by 7.2 percent this year.
The budget was announced at the National People's Congress, an annual meeting of the country's legislature. According to the Pentagon and some experts, China's actual military spending could be 40% higher, taking into account items included in other budgets.
The increase was the same percentage as last year, well below the double-digit growth seen in previous years and reflecting a general slowdown in economic growth. The country's leaders have set a growth target of about 5% for this year.
However, China's military spending still ranks second only to the United States, and the country already has the world's largest navy.
Tensions with the United States, Taiwan, Japan and neighboring states that lay claim to the strategically important South China Sea are seen as driving the development of ever more advanced defense technologies, from stealth fighters to aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons.
The People's Liberation Army, the military wing of the ruling Communist Party, has established bases on artificial islands in the South China Sea, but its primary goal remains establishing Chinese control over Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that Beijing claims as its own territory and which has close ties to the United States.
China deployed a relatively small force of just five planes and seven ships near Taiwan on Wednesday, just days after it sent dozens of aircraft.
Such operations are aimed at demoralizing and exhausting the defensive capabilities of Taiwan, which has been reinforced with modern American F-16 fighters, tanks and missiles, as well as domestically produced weapons.
In his remarks at the congress, Premier Li Qiang told nearly 3,000 party supporters that China still favors a peaceful approach to resolving the Taiwan issue but is “resolutely opposed” to those who support formal Taiwan independence and their foreign allies.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
