China boosts arms race with West

"We will stick to the Chinese path in strengthening our armed forces, advance all aspects of military training and war preparedness."

Li Keqiang, China prime minister

CHINA: China’s defence spending will rise by 8.1 per cent this year to 1.1 trillion yuan (NZ$240 billion) as it prepares to deploy its second aircraft carrier, build stealth fighters, and unveil new anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles.

Details of the increase were published in a report to the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament. China has the world’s secondlargest defence budget after the United States, which will spend NZ$1 trillion.

‘‘We will stick to the Chinese path in strengthening our armed forces, advance all aspects of military training and war preparedness,’’ Li Keqiang, the prime minister, told almost 3000 delegates at the Great Hall of the People. China has the world’s largest military by number of personnel, but Li said the country had completed its target of reducing the size of the armed forces by 300,000. That would leave the People’s Liberation Army’s strength at about 2 million troops.

This year’s defence budget is equivalent to about 1.3 per cent of last year’s GDP of almost Y80t – but the numbers may not give an accurate reflection of spending, as certain new equipment or projects may be accounted for as ‘‘off book’’ expenditures.

China has been fortifying several disputed islets in the South China Sea which it claims as its own.

Its navy has been training rigorously on the aircraft carrier Liaoning, which was bought from Ukraine and heavily refurbished, and in April it unveiled an entirely new carrier.

Adding to the country’s firepower is the Type 093B Shang class nuclear-powered attack submarine, which is equipped with antiship missiles, and the Type 055 guided-missile destroyer. Such vessels threaten the balance of power in the Indian and Pacific oceans, where the US Navy has long been dominant and regional rivals such as Japan and India are stepping up their presence.

The Chinese air force has begun rolling out its J-20 stealth fighter jet, its answer to fifth-generation warplanes such as the American F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning.

China’s missile technology has also been rapidly advancing, and includes the DF-21D, designed to destroy an aircraft carrier, and an air-to-air missile with a range of about 400 kilometres that can attack early-warning aircraft.

A constitutional revision will abolish the presidential term limit this week on Chinese leaders, clearing the way for President Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely.