Bogdan PATASHEV
It's not just Gaza and the war in Ukraine: China's pressure on Taiwan is also driving the global arms race. The growth of 6.8% represents “the largest annual increase since 2009”.
China, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia are among the top five in the world along with the US. Beijing's investments are infecting other Asia-Pacific countries, particularly Japan and Taiwan. Israel registered a growth of 24%.
2023 saw the largest increase in a decade in global military spending, reaching an all-time high of $2.4 trillion, driven by tensions in the Asia-Pacific region (Taiwan) and the conflict between Israel and Hamas, as well as Iran.
These are the data contained in the latest report published yesterday by Sipri (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, ), from which another interesting fact emerges: the largest increases at a geographical level affect Asia, the Middle East and partly Europe due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, which has been going on for more than two years.
“Total military spending is at an all-time high,”, senior researcher Sipri Nan Tien told AFP, according to whom “we witnessed an increase in spending in all five geographic regions”. In numerical terms, the increase in military spending is 6.8% and is “the most significant on an annual basis since 2009”, adds the expert. “This increase is a reflection of the deterioration – he adds – of peace and security in the world“, also because “there is no region where the situation has improved”.
At the national level, the top five military spenders in Sipri's annual report are: the US, China, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia.
In Asia, the most obvious fact is the driving role of China, whose massive increase in military spending is also fueling an arms race in its neighbors, notably Taiwan (which fears an attack from Beijing) and Japan, which has backed up for decades of pacifism. Beijing, the world's second largest spender after the United States, has allocated about $296 billion to the military in 2023, an increase of 6% compared to 2022. This is the twenty-ninth consecutive increase in Chinese military spending on an annual basis , for a nation that accounts for half of total military spending in the Asia-Oceania region,
„China is directing a large portion of its growing military budget to enhance the combat readiness of the People's Liberation Army,” explains Sipri researcher Xiao Liang. “This makes countries like Japan and Taiwan – he continues – to significantly strengthen their military capabilities, a trend that will accelerate even more in the coming years”. In particular, Tokyo has allocated $50.2 billion to the military in 2023, up 11% from 2022. There is a similar increase for Taiwan, with a figure of 11% in 2023, reaching $16.6 billion. The world's fourth-largest spending country, India, saw a 4.3% increase to $83.6 billion.
The author is a former ambassador of Bulgaria to the Vatican and the Order of Malta
FAKTI publishes messages from Pope Francis' Christmas address:
„People who want bread and not weapons, who yearn for peace, do not know how much state money is allocated for armaments. But they should know!“