For the past many years in a row, both for external and for internal security, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has spent billions of dollars because of its rising sense of insecurity to the stability of its regime.
In the terms of external security, China’s defence budget has increased steeply over the years. Asian states spent US$ 367.7 billion in 2016, up by 5.3% when compared with the 2015 figure of US$ 349.1 bn. In 2012-16, Asian real-terms defence spending grew by 5-6% each year. In 2016, China accounted for 39.4% of this total spend. (The International Institute for Strategic Studies IISS 2017: 246). Another premier think tank, SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) further validated the trends on the growing military expenditure of China. According to the SIPRI Factsheet May 2018, “Military expenditure in Asia and Oceania rose from 17 per cent of global military spending in 2008 to 27 per cent in 2017. This was due primarily to China’s spending rising from 5.8 per cent to 13 per cent of the world military expenditure over the period.”The Factsheet further added, ”China’s military spending, at an estimated $ 228 billion, accounted for 48 per cent of the regional total and was 3.6 times that of the region’s second largest spender, India.”From the above figures, it clearly show China’s rising military spending has increased exponentially. However scholars have expressed their doubts about the reliability of the official figures given by the CCP. Which, in fact, clearly implies that it might be just ”the tip of the iceberg.” The rising military spending of the CCP has casted a shadow of doubts across Asian regions. According to 2017 Global Attitudes Survey, Pew Research Centre, the growing China’s military spending and military power has caused concerns across Asia-Pacific regions, leading to the security dilemma in the Western Pacific region. Hence, in order to secure their political stability, the CCP has made their neighbouring countries more insecure and eventually making itself or China more insecure.
The Internal threat of China: Handiwork of the CCP Leaders
Different analysts have given different arguments about China’s higher spending on domestic security as compared to its external security. However, one of the reasons is the CCP’s invasion of East Turkistan (Xinjiang), Tibet, and Inner Mongolia. Because, these are the regions where a large amount of the CCP’s domestic security spending has been pumped in. However, the increasing security spending hasn’t solve the problems. It is no wonder that the heavy securitization drive implemented by Secretary Chen Quanguo in Tibet and East Turkistan (Xinjiang)has exacerbated the problems and further isolated and victimised the repressed groups. However, the surveillance systems are not limited to the repressed groups only. The number of CCTV cameras and the implementation of new surveillance systems have been on a rise throughout China. All these may infringe upon the Chinese peoples’ privacy boundaries, which are very dear to them and will further suffocate them.
A recent scientific paper published in 2018, comprising 2063 respondents from 31 provinces in China on the public perception of genetically-modified (GM) food, reveals that the percentage of respondents that trusted the government’s statement on GM food was only 11.7%.In a way, it shows the Chinese peoples’ lack of trust on the Chinese Communist Party.
Conclusion
It is said that one cannot choose its neighbours, but the geography would define your neighbours. However, the CCP through its expansionist policies, has had made new neighbours, eventually new enemies on its extended borders. To secure their long conquered borders, they undertook heavy military modernization, sending a jittery across its neighbouring countries and beyond.
Not only this, because of its invasion of Tibet, East Turkistan (Ch. Xinjiang) and Mongolia (Inner Mongolia), the CCP has added a mounting pressure on the country, already known for more conflicts and protests within its territory than with outsiders. The increasing domestic security spending in the above regions reveals CCP’s growing insecurity about its legitimacy and political stability.
By increasing its external security spending, the CCP has alarms its neighbouring countries as well as its extended neighbours. While on the other hand, by increasing its internal security spending in the form of mass surveillance and others, the CCP has further suffocated and isolated the common people.
In short, in order to secure their political stability in China and the world, the CCP has made oneself the most insecure Party-State in the world. In future, if the CCP invest more on moral integrity than on security, maybe it may not only survive, but thrive positively.
