China drops ‘peaceful reunification’ reference to Taiwan

Reuters:

BEIJING, March 5- China will boost its defence spending by 7.2% this year, fuelling a military budget that has more than doubled under Xi Jinping’s decade-plus in office as Beijing hardens its stance on Taiwan, according to official reports on Tuesday.

The increase mirrors the rate presented in last year’s budget and again comes in above the government’s economic growth forecast for this year.

China also officially adopted tougher language against Taiwan as it released the budget figures, dropping the mention of “peaceful reunification” in a government work report delivered by Premier Li Qiang at the opening of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s rubber-stamp parliament, on Tuesday.

Tensions have risen sharply in recent years over Taiwan, the democratically ruled island that China claims as its own, and elsewhere across East Asia as regional military deployments rise.

Li Mingjiang, a defence scholar at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore, said that despite a struggling Chinese economy, Taiwan is a major consideration for Beijing’s defence spending.

“China is showing that in the coming decade it wants to grow its military to the point where it is prepared to win a war if it has no choice but to fight one,” Li said.

Since Xi Jinping became president and commander-in-chief more than a decade ago, the defence budget has ballooned to 1.67 trillion yuan ($230.60 billion) this year from 720 billion yuan in 2013.

The percentage rise in military spending has consistently outpaced the annual domestic economic growth target during his time in office; this year the growth target for 2024 is about 5%, similar to last year’s goal, according to the government work report.

The defence budget is closely watched by China’s neighbours and the United States, who are wary of Beijing’s strategic intentions and the development of its armed forces.

Based on data from the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), this year’s budget marks the 30th consecutive year of Chinese defence spending increases.

James Char, a security scholar at the RSIS, said that despite the defence budget’s outpacing GDP growth, it had remained about 1.3% of overall GDP in the last decade and had put no stress on the national coffers.