Facts: New growth target to be hammered out
China’s annual National People’s Congress kicks off on Sunday. It will last until March 13. During the congress, the country’s budget, including the defense budget for this year, will be hammered out. New growth targets for China’s economy will also be presented, probably over 5 percent.
Parallel to the People’s Congress, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference has also been going on since Saturday, which, however, lacks a mandate to make laws and functions more as a debater on current issues than as a decision-making body.
For the conference this year, among other things, proposals have been prepared for a four-day working week, sex education in preschools and the possibility of freezing single women’s eggs to fight against population decline, reports the Financial Times newspaper.
A total of 5,000 delegates gather for the People’s Congress and the Consultative Conference.
Last year, China’s defense budget increased by 7.1 percent. The average for the last 30 years is on increases of 6.6 percent.
It is not yet known exactly how much of a boost there will be in the budget that will now be hammered out, but Wang describes the need for additional funding as important.
— The increase in defense spending is needed to deal with the complex security challenges and for China to be able to fulfill its responsibilities as a major country, he says according to the Bloomberg news agency.
The world’s largest army
According to the World Bank, China spent 1.7 percent of the country’s GDP on defense in 2021, which can be compared to the United States’ 3.5 percent, according to the AP.
With two million soldiers in the People’s Liberation Army, China already has the world’s largest standing army and the world’s largest navy, with nuclear-powered submarines. A third Chinese aircraft carrier was recently launched and on top of this comes a massive inventory of robots, fighter jets and bombers capable of handling nuclear weapons.
The country is also investing in naval bases abroad and already has one completed in Djibouti and one under construction in Cambodia, from which it can quickly get out into the disputed sea areas of the South China Sea, AP reports.
“There would be consequences”
Recently, representatives of the Biden administration have warned that China may begin exporting weapons to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, whose ammunition and weapons arsenal are being used in the war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine.
“It would be a serious problem for our countries,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a G20 meeting in India this week.
— I have made it clear that there would be consequences if they do that, he added according to AP.
Reversals in the top layer
During this year’s National People’s Congress, President Xi Jinping is also expected to get the go-ahead for his allies – Li Qiang and He Lifeng – to take over from Premier Li Keqiang and Vice Premier Liu He, respectively. A new central bank governor is also on the cards. The stable tip is that Yi Gang must leave to make room for Zhu Hexin as the new central bank governor.
China’s economy grew just 3 percent last year, the second slowest growth for the world’s most populous country since the 1970s and well below the 5.5 percent growth target. A new growth target must now be decided, which analysts expect will end up above 5 percent.
Growth last year was stifled by extensive pandemic restrictions for large parts of the year and financial problems in the country’s real estate sector. Since the pandemic restrictions have in principle been removed, the indicators point to a strong growth lift in the country.