New amendments to National Defence Law push China close to war: Scholar

Taipei : The Chinese Government’s recent amendments to its National Defense Law indicate that China has shifted its defense strategy to a more pre-emptive posture, making it more likely that it wages war, according to an expert with a government-funded think tank in Taiwan.
According to Focus Taiwan, the assessment was made in a paper by Lin Cheng-jung, a visiting research fellow from Taiwan’s military at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), which was posted on the institute’s website on January 12.
Lin said that the National Defense Law, which was introduced in 1997, serves as the ‘parent law’ of all Chinese military laws and argued that through the revisions, Beijing has laid the groundwork for giving legal legitimacy to launching a war.
The amendments to the National Defence Law were approved by China’s National People’s Congress on December 26 and took effect on January 1.
Focus Taiwan further reported that the possibility of China waging a war has “increased significantly” because the amendments added a condition under which the state can mobilize its forces, including the military and paramilitary forces, such as the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force and the China Militia.
It further stated that one of the revisions added the term “development interests” to a provision permitting President Xi Jinping led-government to “defend its national interests and development interests, and resolve differences with the use of force”.