|
Edited and translated by People's Daily Online Although there are many factors to consider about how much money should be spent on a country’s national defense in peaceful times, the most important one is the need of the national security. Fundamentally, the increase of China's national defense expenditure is determined by its special national conditions and the security need. China has 9.6 million square kilometers of land area, over three million square kilometers of marine area and a dozen neighboring countries, with 22,000 kilometers of land boundary line and 18,000 kilometers of coastline. It must spend a large amount of money on national defense to protect such a large land area. Among the countries with over three million square kilometers of land area, the share of China’s defense expenditure in the GDP has been the lowest. As the largest developing country, China must deal with the suppression and exclusion from the hegemonic countries. The issue of reunification has been restricting China's peaceful development. As a country in an unstable surrounding environment and is transforming from traditional economy to modernized economy, China faces the most complicated geopolitical environment. As a country that is transforming from traditional economy to modernization, it faces increasingly severe contradiction in the supply and demand of energy and other resources. The tasks of obtaining overseas resources and safeguarding the supply and transport have become more and more arduous. Therefore, China must maintain moderate defense expenditure to respond to the security threats from diverse, multi-dimensional and changeable factors. The moderate growth of China's defense expenditure is facing dual pressures: On one hand, it needs to gradually make up for the historical debts; on the other hand, it needs to narrow the dynamic gap between China's military transformation and the world's new military transformation. |
|
|
