Prez Xi urges hi-tech smart system usage to boost China's border defence

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for greater use of technology and the deployment of a smart system for border defence to meet new opportunities and challenges, amidst Beijing's unresolved land and maritime territorial disputes with its neighbours.

The instructions were made during a group study session on Tuesday attended by the Communist Party's 24-member Politburo, its top policymaking body.

Xi highlighted the need to strengthen technological empowerment in border defence, enhance the development of new methods and conditions for border, maritime, and air defence, and build a comprehensive and smart management and control system," Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.

This aligns with Xi's repeated calls to improve the use of advanced technology in the armed forces to meet modernisation goals by 2027 and achieve the goal of building a world-class military by 2050.

Tuesday's meeting lacked details about what the smart systems would entail, the Post