For the past two decades, the Chinese Liberation Army has sought to transform itself from an old, large force into a powerful and modern structure. China's plan for 2027 that coincides with the centenary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army of China also includes transforming the military into a modern, leading, and full-fledged military force.(Photo quoted from Yahoo's image)
In this sense, having a stronger military could play a significant role in ‘strategically supporting’ China's national modernization program and protecting economic growth and gaining a foothold in the world economy. This modernization program encompasses all parts of China's armed forces. In this area, China also aims to use its military power to secure the country, territorial integrity, national integrity, maritime security, regional stability, and playing a global role.
It should be said that the new defense programs show the ambitions of this country to become an important power. Therefore, upgrading the combat capability and equipping the army with new technologies is related to tensions with the United States and Taiwan, border disputes with India, and disputes over islands and sovereignty over the eastern and southern Chinese seas.
But China's immediate and urgent goal is not only to achieve a local and regional capability, but also to expand its military capability and become a global superpower. China is working to improve its capabilities to defuse security threats and ensure that it has the ability to respond to crises, as well as maintain deterrence and win potential wars under difficult and complex conditions.
In this approach, Beijing seeks to move away from marginal and regional participation and to become an active player in global security and peace. In this regard, the country tries to put military progress in its priorities At a level equal to economic development.
What is clear is that China's military budget increase in 2021 is 6.8% higher than last year, and it is the second country after the United States with the highest military budget. In the same process, and in the eyes of many, the Chinese military will gain the world's first military power by 2050.
China seems to be improving its strengths in technologies and in key areas such as artificial intelligence, intelligence, space weapons and space depth, sea, polar exploration, electronic weapons, drone information technology, electromagnetic weapons, Microwave weapons, and new weapons.
In this approach, the Chinese military becomes practically a more effective and flexible force on land, sea, air, space and cyber. In another dimension, it seems that Beijing intends to increase its nuclear capacity and will double its nuclear arsenal over the next 10 years.
However, China's ongoing efforts to rapidly modernize and upgrade its military and emphasize military progress have raised doubts about the country’s military intentions. But there is no doubt that the US military budget is still about three times that of China. However, it could be the most important competitor to US and Russian capabilities in the not-so-distant future.
Under these circumstances, although China is far away from the United States, it has been able to upgrade its capabilities and outperform the United States sooner than Washington expects with extensive military and defense capabilities development programs.
Farzad Ramezani Bonesh
Senior Researcher and Analyst of International Affairs
