{"id":67595,"date":"2024-03-05T08:39:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T08:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/china-boosts-defence-spending-as-regional-disputes-heat-up\/"},"modified":"2024-03-05T08:39:05","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T08:39:05","slug":"china-boosts-defence-spending-as-regional-disputes-heat-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/china-boosts-defence-spending-as-regional-disputes-heat-up\/","title":{"rendered":"China boosts defence spending as regional disputes heat up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>China announced on Tuesday that it would boost its defence spending in 2024, as hostility over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1804802\">Taiwan<\/a> and in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1772511\">South China Sea<\/a> grows.<\/p>\n<p>The 7.2 per cent increase, identical to last year\u2019s figure, was announced at the start of the annual meeting of the country\u2019s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People\u2019s Congress (NPC).<\/p>\n<p>China will spend 1.665 trillion yuan ($231.4 billion) on defence in 2024, according to the budget report that lays out the government\u2019s financial plans for the year ahead.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1812957\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>China has the world\u2019s second-largest defence budget behind the United States, even though the People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) surpasses the US military by number of personnel.<\/p>\n<p>Still, China\u2019s military spending is around three times smaller than Washington\u2019s in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>The world\u2019s second-largest economy will maintain \u201creasonable growth\u201d in its defence budget to \u201csafeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests\u201d, NPC spokesman Lou Qinjian said Monday.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"viewed-with-suspicion\" href=\"#viewed-with-suspicion\" class=\"heading-permalink\" aria-hidden=\"true\" title=\"Permalink\"\/>Viewed with suspicion<\/h2>\n<p>The country\u2019s expenditure on its armed forces has been on the rise for decades, broadly in line with economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s military spending makes up 1.6pc of its GDP, far less than the United States or Russia, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).<\/p>\n<p>But its defence expansion is viewed with suspicion by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1767806\">Washington<\/a>, as well as other powers in the region including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1790237\">Japan<\/a>, with which Beijing has a territorial dispute over islands in the East China Sea.<\/p>\n<p>China has also increasingly flexed its muscles in the South China Sea, which it claims almost entirely despite an international arbitration ruling that declared its stance baseless.<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s boost in spending is also a cause for concern for self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing says is part of its territory to be claimed by force if necessary.<\/p>\n<p>As the NPC kicked off on Tuesday, the government work report said China would again \u201cresolutely oppose separatist activities aimed at \u2018Taiwan independence\u2019\u201d in 2024.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"biggest-challenge-to-nato\" href=\"#biggest-challenge-to-nato\" class=\"heading-permalink\" aria-hidden=\"true\" title=\"Permalink\"\/>\u2018Biggest challenge to Nato\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>China also says it is worried about cooperation between its regional rivals and the United States, as well as Nato.<\/p>\n<p>Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said in January that China was the \u201cbiggest long term <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1629450\">challenge<\/a> Nato Allies face\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe see them in Africa, we see them in the Arctic, we see them trying to control our critical infrastructure,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>China made \u201ca number of significant acquisitions, including a substantial increase in number of nuclear warheads\u201d last year, James Char, an expert on the Chinese army at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, told <em>AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>According to Sipri, Beijing had 410 nuclear warheads in 2023, an increase of 60 from the year before.<\/p>\n<p>However, that still significantly lags behind Washington\u2019s 3,708 and Moscow\u2019s 4,489.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, \u201crecent military corruption scandals raise doubts about the effectiveness of (Beijing\u2019s) missile force and overall military professionalism,\u201d said Adam Ni, editor of China Neican, a newsletter on Chinese current affairs.<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of the last year, there has been a leadership overhaul of China\u2019s Rocket Force \u2014 the army unit that oversees its nuclear arsenal \u2014 following media reports of a graft probe involving its former chief.<\/p>\n<p>Among a slew of other dismissals, former defence minister Li Shangfu was sacked without explanation last October after just a few months on the job.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"us-still-top-dog\" href=\"#us-still-top-dog\" class=\"heading-permalink\" aria-hidden=\"true\" title=\"Permalink\"\/>US still top dog<\/h2>\n<p>Corruption needs to be tackled if President Xi Jinping\u2019s \u201cgoal of displacing the US armed forces as the world\u2019s pre-eminent military power\u201d is to be realised, said NTU\u2019s Char.<\/p>\n<p>For the time being, Washington remains firmly in the top spot. The United States has the world\u2019s highest military spending, according to Sipri \u2014 standing at $877 billion in 2022, the latest figures available.<\/p>\n<p>China comes second, followed by Russia and India.<\/p>\n<p>The United States also has \u201cglobal presence and alliance networks, which China cannot replicate in the short term\u201d, said Neican\u2019s Ni.<\/p>\n<p>Washington has hundreds of military bases abroad, while Beijing has just one, in Djibouti.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven the PLA\u2019s shortcomings \u2014 particularly in combined arms and joint operations \u2014 it stands to reason that Beijing possesses neither the wherewithal nor the desire to initiate conflict against Washington or launch an invasion across the Taiwan Strait,\u201d said Char.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lingering concern, however, is that aggressive interactions between the PLA and other militaries in the region carry the potential to go awry and escalate into a full-blown conflict. \u201c<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China announced on Tuesday that it would boost its defence spending in 2024, as hostility over Taiwan and in the South China Sea grows. The 7.2 per cent increase, identical to last year\u2019s figure, was announced at the start of the annual meeting of the country\u2019s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People\u2019s Congress (NPC). China will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/03\/0513271486f0d18.jpg?r=132809","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}