Online Desk: China on Tuesday announced a 7.2% increase in its defense budget, which is already the world’s second-highest behind the United States at 1.6 trillion yuan ($222 billion), roughly mirroring last year’s rise, reports Associated Press.
Tensions with the U.S., Taiwan, Japan and neighbors with competing claims to the crucial South China Sea are seen as furthering growth in high-tech military technologies from stealth fighters to aircraft carriers and a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons.

The official budget figure announced Tuesday at the opening of the legislature’s annual meeting is considered only a fraction of spending by the People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of the ruling Communist Party, once spending on research and development and foreign weapons purchases are considered.

“We will provide stronger financial guarantees for efforts to modernize our national defense and the armed forces on all fronts and consolidate and enhance integrated national strategies and strategic capabilities,” Premier Li Qiang told the assembly of nearly 3,000 carefully selected participants, who show overwhelming loyalty to the Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping.

China’s defense budget has more than doubled since 2015, even as the country’s economic growth rate has slowed considerably. However, the country’s continuing ambition is to challenge the U.S. and its allies in Asia including Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia over territorial claims, regional leadership and a bigger say in world affairs.

Its defense budget grew by double-digit percentage figures for much of the 2000s but began to slow as the formerly booming economy started to plateau. In his address, Li put the GDP growth target at 5% this year, while acknowledging it would be difficult to achieve.

China’s economy is dealing with high youth unemployment and a cratering real estate market after developers who took out giant bank loans were unable to pay back their lenders or deliver units to buyers who had spent their life savings to put a roof over their heads.

That hasn’t dampened Beijing’s global ambitions, however, with conquest over the self-governing island democracy of Taiwan, driving Indian forces from their disputed border, and asserting control over islands in the East China and South China Sea all on Beijing’s list of priorities.

In the latest dangerous incident, Chinese coast guard ships blocked Philippine vessels off a disputed South China Sea shoal on Tuesday, causing a minor collision, the Philippine coast guard said.

Philippine security officials have accused the Chinese coast guard and suspected militia ships of blocking Philippine vessels and using water cannons and a military-grade laser that temporarily blinded some Filipino crewmen in a series of high-seas hostilities last year.

Those all play into China’s increasingly intensive rivalry with the U.S. in the political, economic, military and technological spheres that has led to punitive tariffs and travel bans on Chinese officials, followed by retaliation by Beijing. China’s support for Russia and refusal to condemn its invasion of Ukraine have also aggravated relations with Washington.

The U.S. still leads the world in defense spending, with the Department of Defense’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 totaling $842 billion, roughly a 5% increase when adjusted for inflation.

While the U.S. has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, it remains the island’s main guarantor of security and provider of advanced weaponry.