{"id":26091,"date":"2020-05-26T20:49:45","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T15:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/prepare-for-war%e2%80%89chinas-xi-jinping-tells-army-to-thwart-coronavirus-impact-on-national-security\/"},"modified":"2020-05-26T20:49:45","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T15:19:45","slug":"prepare-for-war-chinas-xi-jinping-tells-army-to-thwart-coronavirus-impact-on-national-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=26091","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Prepare for war\u2019:\u2009China\u2019s Xi Jinping tells army to thwart coronavirus impact on national security"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Xi Jinping\u2019s speech comes amid rising tension with the US, frequent references by local politicians and diplomats of reunifying Taiwan. Tension is also escalating with India with troops from the two countries clashing along different areas along the 3,488 kilometre-long disputed border.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday directed China\u2019s armed forces to strengthen training of troops and to be ready for war amid coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic\u2019s visible impact on the world\u2019s most populous country\u2019s national security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State media reports quoted the Chinese premier as saying that it was important to \u201ccomprehensively strengthen the training of troops and prepare for war\u201d, \u201cresolutely safeguard national sovereignty\u201d and \u201csafeguard the overall strategic stability of the country\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xi\u2019s speech comes amid rising tension with the US, frequent references by local politicians and diplomats of reunifying Taiwan, if necessary by force, and the likely implementation of a new \u2013 and controversial \u2013 security law meant to crack down on pro-democracy dissidents in the special administrative region of Hong Kong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two days back, China\u2019s top diplomat Wang Yi, heavily criticised the efforts of some US politicians to fabricate rumours and stigmatise China to blame it for the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US, Wang said, is pushing relations with China to \u201cthe brink of a new Cold War\u201d. Chinese state councillor and foreign minister also rejected US \u201clies\u201d over the coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tension is also escalating with India with troops from the two countries clashing along different areas along the 3,488 kilometre-long disputed border especially, in Ladakh, in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both armies are said to have deployed additional troops in sensitive areas along the boundary with experts predicting a lengthy standoff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xi said that China\u2019s performance in fighting Covid-19 has shown the success of military reforms and the armed forces should explore new ways of training, despite the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xi, who chairs China\u2019s powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), made the comments at a meeting of the delegation of the People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) and People\u2019s Armed Police Force (PAPF) on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People\u2019s Congress (NPC), the country\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xi added that it was necessary to make preparations for military struggle, \u201c\u2026to flexibly carry out actual combat military training, and to comprehensively improve our military\u2019s ability to carry out military missions\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xi, according to the state media, pointed out \u201c\u2026this epidemic prevention and control struggle is a practical test for national defence and military reform, fully embodies the effectiveness of the reform, and also puts forward new requirements for reform\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xi\u2019s strongly-worded speech coincided with a series of \u201cunverified\u201d photographs and videos being uploaded on Chinese social media platforms showing Beijing\u2019s second aircraft carrier — the country\u2019s first indigenously built one — leaving its shipyard for a sail on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe move, if verified, will mark the aircraft carrier, the Shandong\u2019s first known voyage in five months since being commissioned in December and later returning to the shipyard for maintenance,\u201d a state media report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Separately, a military spokesperson said on Tuesday that a moderate and steady increase in the nation\u2019s defence expenditure is right, proper, and necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was announced last week that China has set its annual defence budget growth target at 6.6%, as compared to 7.5% last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has both economic and military development in mind and national defence should be developed in coordination with economic development, said Wu Qian, PLA spokesperson. Beijing\u2019s homeland security and overseas interests are also facing some real threats, Wu added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With inputs from <\/em>Hindustan Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Xi Jinping\u2019s speech comes amid rising tension with the US, frequent references by local politicians and diplomats of reunifying Taiwan. Tension is also escalating with India with troops from the two countries clashing along different areas along the 3,488 kilometre-long disputed border. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday directed China\u2019s armed forces to strengthen training […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}