like the popular former chongqing party chief bo xilai such moves had the benefit of rooting out political enemies and promoting his own people into newly vacant jobs while winning public supportxi also oversaw a crushing of dissent and forbade disrespectful discussion about the party among members all comments critical of xi were scrubbed from the internetin 2016 he made himself the core of the party and in 2018 he ditched the twoterm limit on the presidency clearing the way to rule for lifereshaping chinas militaryduring his speech at the opening of cpc xi warned that china will not renounce the use of force to unify taiwan with the mainland and vowed to advance the modernisation of the countrys military to worldclass standards to protect national sovereignty security and developmental interestsin his decade at the helm xi has prioritised security expansion of the states economic role a strengthening military a more assertive foreign policy and intensifying pressure to seize taiwanchina has built the worlds largest navy revamped the globes biggest standing army and amassed a nuclear and ballistic arsenal to trouble any foefor years the peoples liberation army was seen as illequipped and ineffective disparaged by one historian as the worlds largest military museumit was kitted out with ageing sovietderived weaponry riddled with corruption and was a predominantly infantry force with a lessthanstellar record in foreign campaignswhen xi became commanderinchief of the pla in 2013 some reforms were already under waybut it wasnt really until xi jinping came in that that effort started translating to capability strategic consultant alexander neill told afpbeijings military budget has now increased for 27 consecutive years according to the stockholm international peace research institutetoday china boasts two active aircraft carriers hundreds of long and intermediaterange ballistic missiles thousands of warplanes and a navy surpassing even the united statesschinas nuclear stockpile is increasing exponentially and according to the pentagon can probably now be launched from land sea and air echoing the us nuclear triadaccording to the bulletin of the atomic scientists china has about 350 nuclear warheads double the amount held during the cold warus intelligence predicts that this stockpile may double again to 700 by 2027 new nuclear missile silos are being built in the northwest of the countryquad fears with an unprecedented military expansion china has asserted authority over much of south china sea and is looking to dominate the indian ocean regionchinas expansionist behaviour has forced countries like us india japan and australia to band together a quad alliance which is seen as a counterweight to beijing at a report submitted to the cpc on sunday xi said that china opposes all forms of unilateralism and the formation of blocs and exclusive groups targeted against particular nations this indicated beijings firm opposition to groupings like the quadchina has been opposing the formation of the quad alliance comprising the us india australia and japan besides the aukus an alliance of australia the uk and the us saying these groups