China’s defence spending to rise 7-8 per cent

BEIJING, March 4: China’s defence budget this year is likely to rise at its slowest pace since 2010, in line with the decelerating economy and by a much lower figure than had been expected in military and diplomatic circles.
Fu Ying, spokeswoman for China’s parliament, said the figure would increase by about seven to eight percent from 2015, following a nearly unbroken two-decade run of double-digit budget increases.
China’s military build-up has rattled nerves around the region, particularly because China has taken an increasingly assertive stance in its territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas.
Fu told a news conference the defense budget would be released on Saturday, when the annual session of China’s largely rubber-stamp legislative body opens.
It will be the first single-digit rise in spending since 2010, when the military budget logged a 7.5 percent increase.
Defense spending last year was budgeted to rise 10.1 percent to 886.9 billion yuan ($135.39 billion), which still only represents about a quarter of that of the United States.
The U.S. Defense Department budget for 2016 is $573 billion.
China’s leaders have routinely sought to justify military modernization by linking defense spending to rapid GDP growth. But growth of 6.9 percent last year was the slowest in 25 years, and a further slowdown is widely expected in 2016.
“One simple reason for the lower increase is that double-digit growth is now harder to sustain,” said Bonji Obara of the Tokyo Foundation think-tank and a former military attaché at Japan’s embassy in Beijing.
“But another reason is that China’s anti-corruption campaign means less money is being siphoned off and spending has become more efficient,” he added, referring to President Xi Jinping’s vigorous efforts to root out graft.
The defense budget had been widely expected in military and diplomatic circles to log another double-digit increase.-Reuters