China’s top general calls for increased military spending to prepare for ‘Thucydides trap’ that will force a war with US

China’s top general has called for increased military spending to prepare for a war with the United States.

General Xu Qilian, who is second in command of the country’s armed forces after President Xi, said China needs to ready itself for the ‘Thucydides Trap’.

The term refers to the inevitability of war when a new global power displaces an existing one.

Xu said, according to the South China Morning Post: ‘In the face of the Thucydides Trap and border problems, the military must speed up increasing its capacity.

‘[We] must make breakthroughs in combat methods and ability, and lay a sound foundation for military modernisation.’

Xu is one of the 25 members of the Communist Party’s inner circle and wants to increase spending on what is already the world’s biggest military.

He believes China will soon overtake the US as an economic power, with its GDP more than 70 per cent that of its rival, he said.

Xu made the comments on Friday in a discussion at the annual gathering of China’s National People’s Congress.

The Thucydides Trap is rarely openly discussed by high-ranking officials in China.

President Xi said in 2015 while on a visit to Seattle: ‘There is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides Trap.

‘But should major countries time and again make the mistake of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves.’

Xu’s comments come amid concern in China about its relationship with the US under President Joe Biden.

Biden has said Beijing is Washington’s ‘most serious competitor’, and his administration has indicated it will broadly continue the tough approach taken by Donald Trump.

China for decades has been considered a growing rival to the US, and its own leaders have designed elaborate strategies to carve out influence in the developing world.

Leaders have focused on expanding Chinese territorial claims, exerting more control of special territories like Hong Kong and continuing its gains as a global military and economic power.

During the Trump administration, the US launched a series of actions against China, including a trade war, sanctions against Chinese officials and firms perceived to be security threats and challenging Beijing’s South China Sea territorial claims.

Xi congratulated Biden on his election in a message in November, even though Biden had called him a ‘thug’ during the campaign and vowed to lead an international effort to ‘pressure, isolate and punish China.’

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned Biden not to cross China’s ‘red lines’ such as the disputed territory of Taiwan, where US warships have been patrolling in recent weeks.

Defence ministry spokesman Wu Qia said some of the 6.8 per cent of the increase to the military budget will be spent on trying to catch up with the US to ‘fight and win’ on the modern battlefield.

The rest of the money will be spent on training, weapons and salaries for China’s two million soldiers.

Source : Daily Mail