Beijing prepares for NPC with increase of military budget
Beijing (AsiaNews) - Mainland China's budget for spending in the industrial and military sector will increase by 10% in 2015. This was announced this morning Fu Ying, spokesman for the annual session of the National People's Congress that opens on March 6 in Beijing. The formal announcement will be given in their first meeting of the "Chinese Parliament" which meets once a year to ratify the decisions taken by the executive.
The 2015 gathering is officially the "third session of the 12th Assembly." Meetings of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a sort of "lower house" of Chinese legislation, are already underway. This is a "guiding" body and groups together figures from the worlds of science, culture and civil society.
The NPC delegates, however, are professional politicians, representatives of the various national ethnic groups - which have increasing incidence - figures drawn from the economic and industrial classes. Some experts have long defined the "Chinese Parliament" as "the meeting of billionaires".
As for the increase in military spending, the exact sum has "yet to be defined". In any case, the announced increase moves China to second position in world rankings - after the United States - of who spends most on their army.
Last year, with an increase of 12.2% of the budget, the Asian country spent about $ 130 billion; Washington announced it will spend 585 billion for fiscal year 2016. Many analysts, however, advance several doubts about the true extent of the planned investments, given that Beijing "might hide" sectors considered sensitive such as nuclear and cyber defense.
The increase is likely to heighten the tensions that feed East Asia. Both Japan and Korea - to China's east - are suspicious of new navy ships and military reconnaissance jets that Beijing wants to "increase in number and potential" for the various territorial disputes opposed by Tokyo and Seoul. There are also problems with the nations of Southeast Asia, especially the Philippines and Vietnam, which in 2014 have clashed with the People's Liberation Army several time in the disputed areas.
Meanwhile, while about 3 thousand delegates are flocking to the opening session - expected in the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square - the spokesman explained that a supervisory body of 172 members has been elected who "will monitor and guide" the work of the sub -commissions; that "only the decrees relating to the Constitution and to other topics of high importance" will be discussed in plenary session; that the meeting this year will last "10 and a half days", which is 36 hours longer than usual.
Delegates were then admonished to "behave in a manner appropriate to the event." Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the Consultative Conference, opened the meeting this year asking members of the organism to "improve the moral standards, support the leadership of the Communist Party and refrain from making extreme statements".
His appeal stems
from the decimation of the Conference members: during the anti-corruption
campaign launched in November 2012 by President Xi Jinping, in fact, as many as
14 delegates were expelled and arrested. Among
these, the vice president Su Rong and Ling Jihua, the right hand man of former
President Hu Jintao.
In
general, moreover, the Propaganda Department and the Department for Internal Communist
Party discipline sent new rules of conduct to all delegates on their way to
Beijing. According
to the Beijing Times, the two organizations have banned Communist Party Members
from checking social networks on mobile phones during meetings; smoking in public areas; playing on their tablet or mobile
phone; falling asleep
during meetings.
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05/03/2018 14:19
