Modernising military remains top priority as China boosts defence spending to US$175.98 billion after announcement in Two Sessions
- Funding will rise to US$175.98 billion in 2019 – up by 7.5 per cent from 2018 but less than the 8.1 per cent growth last year
- Analyst says the increase will ‘only fuel greater and deeper suspicion of Beijing’s motivations and strategic objectives’
China’s modest defence budget increase this year shows that modernising the military will remain a top priority for Beijing amid a slowing economy and the trade war with America, analysts say.
Military funding will rise to 1.18 trillion yuan (US$175.98 billion) in 2019, up by 7.5 per cent from last year, according to the budget report released on Tuesday at the opening of the National People’s Congress in Beijing.
Although that is less than the 8.1 per cent defence spending increase in 2018, it is above the 6 to 6.5 per cent economic growth forecast for 2019.
John Lee, a senior fellow at the United States Studies Centre of the University of Sydney, said China had maintained continuous expansion of its military budget for three decades, and the increase had always been above the nation’s GDP growth.
“It is no exaggeration to say that China is engaged in the most rapid (in relative and absolute terms) of military build-ups in peacetime history since the end of the second world war,” Lee said.