In tandem with a whopping defence spending, China today boosted its
domestic security budget by 11.5 per cent to USD 111 billion apparently
to contain unrest in the strategically important Tibet and Xinjiang
regions.
The internal security spending, a shade higher than its
defence budget, was unveiled at the ongoing National People's Congress
(NPC, ahead of a leadership succession that has sparked fear of
instability.
The hike comes amid tension in ethnic Tibetan parts
of China and days after an attack in Xinjiang - home to minority Muslim
Uighurs - left 20 people dead.
The security budgets of the local
and central governments were stipulated at 701. 8 billion yuan (USD
111.4 billion), according to the Chinese draft of the Finance Ministry
report.
Last year China spent 629.3 billion yuan, which was an increase of 13.8 per cent increase compared to 2010.
With
the domestic security budget continues to surpass the defence budget,
China remained one of the rare countries to spend more on internal
security than that of defence.
The defence budget which was announced yesterday touched a major milestone crossing USD 100 billion mark.
The defence spending was hiked to USD 106.4 billion, (670 billion Yuan) registering 11.2 per cent increase.
China
is facing most challenging security situation in Tibet and Xinjiang,
perhaps the worst in its six decade-long control of the two of its
biggest province which are ethnically different from the mainland Han
Chinese community.
Emerging story. Watch this space for updates as more details come in
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