Deutsche Welle (DW) TV, on March 4, 2015, reported China is “beefing up” its military spending by 10%, and that is is causing “jangled nerves” among its neighbors.
China, according to DW’s online news March 3, 2015, said it was a part of her country’s modernization drive. DW added,
“The rise in defense spending also represented China’s slowest growth in military spending in the last five years, although many experts were of the opinion that the country’s real defense outlays were larger than stated.”
BBC said that,
“It is pouring investment into hi-tech equipment such as submarines and stealth jets”
Her Asian Neighbors
Other Asian countries are concerned because China, whose territory already dwarfs all of its close neighbors except for Russia, has been embroiled with them in ongoing territorial disputes. Some of them are over islands.
India, which has a border dispute with China, has also increased its military budget according to BBC’s March 4, 2015 online news report.
Past Asian history must also be considered. Japan and China were bitter enemies in World War II and neither side has totally forgotten.
On January 14, 2015, DW News remarked that Japan too boosted its own military spending — for the third year in a row.
The West
Europe and her allies see no reason to be thrilled about China’s planned increased military spending either.
The Western world regards China as an ally of Russia. And China, with its own space program and other advanced technology, would have no problem in assisting Russia in replacing any sophisticated equipment lost by Moscow in her own skirmishes over territory.
In all of the military posturing going on, one thing is very plain. Real peace remains as elusive as ever.
Photo, Map credits: CIA
