BEIJING: China has announced a 7.2 per cent hike in its defence budget for this year, keeping pace with its 2024 figure as the country marches on with its military modernisation drive amid a troubled geopolitical landscape.
The pot is set to grow to 1.78 trillion yuan (US$245.6 billion), according to a draft budget report on Wednesday (Mar 5), as Chinese Premier Li Qiang was set to deliver the government work report at the opening session of the National People’s Congress (NPC).
The headline figure is announced annually at the Two Sessions, which comprises the NPC gathering and the meeting of the country’s top political advisory body.
The latest amount marks the 10th straight year of single-digit growth in the national military budget. China raised its defence budget by 7.2 per cent last year.
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday (Mar 4), NPC spokesperson Lou Qinjian highlighted that “(China’s) defence budget has remained below 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) for many years, lower than the global average”.
China’s defence spending is closely watched as a measure of how Beijing will expand its military capabilities, especially as it faces brewing tensions in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, along with a growing Sino-US rivalry.
In 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that China aims to “basically complete” the “modernisation of national defence and the military” by 2035 and to build a “world-class military” by the mid-century.
He has also emphasised that military modernisation is key to “safeguarding national sovereignty, security, and development interests”.
Professor Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London, told CNA that China’s increasing defence budget comes at a “strategically critical” moment, as competition with the United States escalates under the Trump administration and security threats grow more complex.
“The world is becoming extremely chaotic, with America picking fights with its allies and its competitors, (and) in this kind of environment, most countries will be extremely defensive,” he noted.
“China is defensive at the best of times, and now even more so because of the heightened insecurity that it probably feels from its environment and from America, which is very hard to predict.”
