March 5, 2021

While the world is mostly still under the thick cloud of the COVID-19 pandemic, China on Friday convened its annual legislative session, one of the biggest in the world, and released a flurry of sweeping plans and goals, including an over 6 percent GDP growth target for 2021 and a hiked 6.8 increase in its military spending, putting on full display its resilience and confidence in advancing all areas, from the economy to livelihood and national defense.

China's return to a decades-old tradition of setting numeric economic growth targets, after skipping it for the first time in 2020, its ability to balance various priorities to ensure robust economic development and national security as well as its ambitious and yet specific long-term development plans also projected steadiness and a sense of certainty to a world rattled by the pandemic, analysts noted.

Still, a relatively conservative growth target for 2021 and a slight increase in defense budget also underscored the lingering formidable tasks ahead, including eliminating the coronavirus, improving the quality and sustainability of the economy and responding to rising geopolitical tensions in a wide range of areas from the Taiwan Straits, to the South China Sea and the border with India. 

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