Under Xi's leadership, China's military has undergone radical transformation

 Under Xi's leadership, China's military has undergone radical transformation

Xi Jinping has been in power for a decade in China.  During this time, China built the world's largest navy, the country's army became the world's largest, and built a large stockpile of nuclear and ballistic weapons.  This military capability of China is a major headache for the country's enemies in any part of the world.

 China's neighboring countries are also trying to increase their stockpiles of weapons as quickly as possible.  In the meantime, Xi Jinping is coming back to power in the country for the next five years.  According to military analysts, the arms race in the countries of Asia and the Pacific region will take a bigger shape during this time.

China's neighbors are not lagging behind in the competition to increase their military capabilities.  On the one hand, South Korea is building a navy called 'Blue-Water' and on the other hand, Australia is buying nuclear-powered submarines.  In recent times there has been a big jump in arms purchases among countries in the region.

 According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic, the defense spending of Asia-Pacific countries exceeded one trillion (one hundred million) dollars in the last year alone.  China, the Philippines and Vietnam have nearly doubled their military spending over the past decade.  South Korea, India and Pakistan are not far behind.  Even Japan has set record allocations in the defense sector.  At the same time, Japan has withdrawn from the policy of 'not attacking anyone first' under any circumstances.

Malcolm Davies, a former Australian defense official and associated with the country's Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said India and major countries in the Pacific region are also following the same path to keep up with China's military modernization.  Not just walking, they are increasing military capabilities as fast as possible.

For years, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) was seen as an ineffective force with weak weapons.  One historian calls the PLA the world's greatest military museum.  At that time, most of the Chinese weapons were Soviet-era.  Along came corruption and dependence on the infantry.

 About 200,000 Chinese citizens lost their lives as the PLA took part in the Korean War.  In 1979, hundreds of thousands of Chinese people also died in the Vietnam War.  That history has also been changed a lot.  This reform began in 2013 when Xi Jinping became the 'Commander-in-Chief' of the PLA.

According to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, China's defense spending has been increasing for 27 consecutive years.  Now China's arsenal includes two aircraft carriers, hundreds of long and short-range ballistic missiles, and thousands of fighter jets.  In addition, the country's current navy has surpassed the US Navy.

 After China briefly encircled Taiwan last August in response to a visit by the speaker of the US Congress, a top US military official pointedly said China's military capabilities to truly deter them would be too difficult, even for Washington.

 US Seventh Fleet Commander Carl Thomas told the media, they (China) have a huge navy.  They can do many things if they want.

 According to the information provided by the US Department of Defense Pentagon, not only conventional weapons, but also China's stockpile of nuclear weapons is increasing day by day.  The nuclear weapons that China has, they can hit targets by water, land and air.  Until now, only the United States had this capability.  Now China has that capability.  According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, China has 350 nuclear weapons, twice as many as during the Cold War.

Meanwhile, US intelligence believes that by 2027, China's stockpile of nuclear weapons will double and exceed 700.  A new stockpile of nuclear-capable missiles is underway in northwest China.  This is not a Pentagon 'poke' about China's military power and ambitions.

 In a report last year, the Pentagon said that China is the only rival of the United States in terms of economic, diplomatic, military and technological power.  It is also a major challenge for a stable and free world order.  Beijing continues to try to shape the entire world order through national interests and authoritarianism.

Read more