Washington.- The United States military must be prepared for a possible confrontation with China, Pentagon leaders warned Thursday as they pressed Congress to pass an $842 billion budget proposal from the Department of Defense that will modernize the force in Asia and Worldwide.
“This is a strategy-driven budget, and one driven by the seriousness of our strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in testimony before the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee. Representatives.
Noting increases in new technologies such as hypersonics, Austin said the budget proposes to spend more than $9 billion, a 40% increase from last year, on developing military capabilities in the Pacific and defending the allies.
The testimony comes on the heels of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow amid concerns that China will step up its support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine and increasingly threaten the West.
China’s actions, said General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “are leading it down the path of confrontation and potential conflict with its neighbors and possibly with the United States.” He said that deterring and preparing for war “is extraordinarily expensive, but it’s not as expensive as fighting a war. And this budget prevents war and prepares us to fight it if necessary.
