Researcher — Hold military budget

It came just days after President Donald Trump pitched a 10 percent surge in USA military spending.

The increase will amount to 1.3% of China’s gross domestic product, Fu Ying, a spokesperson for China’s National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, said during a press conference.

The 7 per cent rise – if there were no changes – would be the smallest since 2010 and marks the second year in a row that the country will not increase its military spending by a double-digit percentage. State power is excercised by the people through the National People’s Congress (NPC) and local people’s congresses. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, viewing it as a wayward province.

CHINA values the current worldwide order with the United Nations at the center and actively participates in global affairs, a spokesperson for the top legislature annual session said Saturday.

China’s military build-up has rattled nerves around the region, particularly because China has taken an increasingly assertive stance in its territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas and over Taiwan, which China claims as its own. Meanwhile, China’s relation with North Korea has soured after China in February suspended all coal imports from its neighbour as retribution for North Korea’s nuclear tests.

Trump has proposed increasing America’s defense and security spending by $54 billion while putting the budgets of other lower-priority government agencies on the chopping block.

And over half of them are dollar billionaires.

In a government-arranged interview on Saturday evening, Chen Zhou, a researcher at the Academy of Military Science, said transparency was a “historical process”.

“As to how to the situation develops in future, that depends on United States intentions”.

He added that Beijing would give full play to the distinctive strengths of the special administrative regions, as well as elevating their positions and roles in China’s economic development.

Mr Li called for attention to the risks of China’s surging debt levels, which economists see as a rising threat to growth.

National People’s Congress spokeswoman Fu Ying said Saturday that both sides needed to make greater efforts to boost USA knowledge about its largest trading partner.

Professor Bates Gill, from the Australian National University (ANU), said China still had a long way to go to match USA capabilities.

The country’s defense budget rose by 7.6% in 2016.

“Xi pointed out previous year the need for a new relationship between the people and the government”.

China’s premier warned Sunday that the world’s second-largest economy faces “grave challenges”, signalling a further deceleration as he announced a trimmed 2017 GDP growth target of “around 6.5 percent”.

The government said Sunday that it’s targeting growth of “around 6.5% or higher if possible” in 2017.

Since taking over in 2012, Xi has consolidated power more rapidly than any leader in decades, but has shaken the party with an anti-graft crackdown and moves to install allies in high posts.

Still, the growth in spending is faster than the overall economy, reflecting Mr. Xi’s determination to continue the military modernization program, according to experts.

Altogether, U.S. defense spending represents 40 percent of the world’s total defense spending.