 "Chinese tank")
Chinese Defence Spokesperson Senior Colonel Wu Qian on March 9 said that Beijing's "defence spending is transparent and moderate", even as China's national defence Budget in 2024 grew by 7.2 per cent, well above its economic growth target of "around 5 per cent". While the 2024 defence outlay will continue to focus on equipment modernisation and procurement, there is also deliberate focus this year on improving the human resources -- from senior officers to common soldiers -- that make up the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). In fact, an analysis of commentaries from the PLA's mouthpiece and official remarks in the wake of the increased defence outlay betray serious concerns in Beijing about the war-fighting capacity of its soldiers.
China's Ministry of Finance had submitted its annual Budget plan to the National People's Congress, which is the top lawmaking body of the People's Republic of China, on March 5. This increase brings China's defence Budget for 2024 to nearly 1.67 trillion yuan, or $232 billion, which is triple India's defence allocation of Rs 6.21 trillion, or about $75 billion, for FY25. According to Nikkei Asia, this is also the third year in a row that China's defence Budget has grown more than 7 per cent.
India's defence Budget also saw a 'moderate' rise
Meanwhile, India's defence allocation rose from Rs 5.93 trillion in FY24 to Rs 6.21 trillion in FY25, up 4.75 per cent. A recent Business Standard analysis revealed that this rise is insufficient to even cover the Reserve Bank of India's consumer price index inflation, which stands at 5.4 per cent this year. The FY25 outlay also does not cover the rise in the cost of forex, a crucial detail for India's armed forces which still depend on imports for various defence platforms. According to the analysis, the cost of the US dollar has gone up by 1.2 per cent in FY24.
 "China fighter jet")
DYAGILEVO, RYAZAN, RUSSIA - AUGUST 1, 2019: Chengdu J-10A jet fighter of People's Liberation Army Air Force seen at Dyagilevo airfield during Aviadarts contest. Image credit: Shutterstock
China worried about 'peace disease'
Apart from modernising its arsenal and investing in new defence technologies, Beijing's chief military challenge, which its increased defence outlay will seek to address, is what it calls the "peace disease". Unlike development and procurement of weapons, this is a human resource challenge.
Writing for The Diplomat, Robert Rust, a China analyst with the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, explained that Chinese analysts and leaders have been open about the shortcomings of their armed forces while addressing domestic audiences. They have been calling on the army to overcome the "peace disease", a term they use for the perceived lack of discipline and reliability among China's military personnel, caused by the ostensible lack of actual combat operations in decades. Evidently, the deadly clash between the militaries of India and China at Ladakh's Galwan Valley in June 2020, and the following build-up of forces by both sides, does not count as a major military operation.
While addressing the delegation of the People's Liberation Army and the Armed Police Force in 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping had called for vigorously correcting the "peace disease", which would have a bearing on how China would fight its future wars and train its troops. Stating that correcting this "peace disease" would be a top priority, Xi had described it as a fatal corrosive to combat effectiveness and the number one enemy in military training and preparation for war.
In line with this goal, President Xi has made combating corruption, especially in the PLA, a key plank of his tenure. Xi has approached the problem from two fronts -- removing higher-level officials to set examples and building a culture of increased discipline and fighting corruption among the rank and file.
PLA will enhance discipline in 2024
An editorial published by the PLA Daily on January 1, which provides an outlook for PLA's goals in 2024, reinforced the message: Improved discipline and fighting corruption would be the main goals for the year. Highlighting that 2024 marked the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the editorial said that the military's tasks would be "arduous and onerous", adding that the military would "carry out in-depth educational and practical activities" to strengthen the military, "build a solid ideological foundation" for "obeying commands", adhere to a "strict tone, strict measures, and strict atmosphere", "unswervingly uphold integrity and discipline", and "fight a tough and protracted battle against corruption".
The editorial also said that the Chinese military would "implement the standards for good military cadres, focus on selecting and employing personnel in preparation for war, and ensure that the guns are always in the hands of those who are loyal and reliable to the Party (Communist Party of China)". One of the key goals it set out for the military was: Strengthening military training and preparation for war. Stating that training was the most important factor in military preparation, the editorial said that the Chinese military must prepare for war, accelerate the supply of advanced combat capabilities, undertake actual combat training, come up with innovative training methods, "strengthen practical confrontation training", and improve "actual combat capabilities".
China's 2024 defence Budget focuses on training and military governance
The goals outlined in PLA Daily editorials and articles coming from the Communist Party of China's official mouthpieces also found prominent mention during the March 9 media briefing on China's national defence Budget for 2024 in Beijing. During the briefing, the Chinese defence spokesperson mentioned earlier, Senior Colonel Wu Qian, said that the increased defence expenditure in 2024 was primarily allocated to four specific areas. Of these, at least three explicitly dealt with strengthening military training and combat preparedness of the troops, deepening defence and military reforms, and establishing a modern military governance system. The other targets to be met were advancing the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan for military development, ensuring the implementation of major military projects and programmes, and accelerating innovation and development of defence-related science and technology.
 "China military training")
University students take part in military training in Xiangyang, Hubei province, China on Sep 7, 2015. Image credit: Shutterstock
Purge at the top
In a recent piece, Lyle J Morris, Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy and National Security at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis, highlighted that in December last year and February this year, at least 10 senior Chinese military officers were removed from the country's national legislative body, in what external observers have described as a purge. Overall, three generals, five lieutenant generals, and two commanders have been dismissed. This is further indication of President Xi's dual approach to increasing discipline in the PLA. In January, Bloomberg News had reported that according to US intelligence, President Xi's military purge was in response to widespread corruption in the Chinese armed forces. Citing sources, the report also said that US officials were of the belief that corruption inside China's armed forces was so extensive that Xi was less likely to engage in major military action in the coming years than would otherwise have been the case.
Taken together, official commentary surrounding 2024's defence outlay, recent developments in the Chinese military, and open source information from Chinese military publications show that China is attempting a holistic modernisation of its armed forces, where the quality of its manpower will be just as important as the quantity of its firepower.
