PLA officers make rare public show of disappointment at military budget increase
Xi Jinping showing army who’s boss: source
Military officers have taken the rare step of publicly registering disappointment at the increase in China’s defence budget.
Military figures and analysts said the “surprisingly low” budget increase indicated President Xi Jinping was not scared of offending senior military officials and was demonstrating his ability to control the army through economic means.
The National People’s Congress announced on Saturday that the defence budget would grow 7.6 per cent this year to 954 billion yuan (HK$1.1 trillion). That compared to a budget increase last year of 10.1 per cent and was the first single-digit increase since 2010, when it grew 7.5 per cent.
Major General Qian Lihua, former head of the foreign affairs office of the Ministry of National Defence, told a panel discussion of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee yesterday that compared to last year’s increase, this year’s represented a “big reduction”.
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“Some Western media predicted that China’s defence budget might increase up to 20 per cent before the opening of the NPC and CPPCC. The result is not only much, much lower than Western [media]’s prediction, but also a certain distance from my early expectation.”