BEIJING—China announced on Thursday that its official military budget will grow by 10.1 percent in the coming year, amid unease among Beijing’s neighbors about its growing might and territorial ambitions.
The increase to about $145 billion in spending would mark the fifth year in a row of double-digit increases despite the country’s slowing economic growth, which fell to 7.4 percent last year from 7.7 percent the previous year.
The spending reflects China’s growing power and desire to assert itself in the region and globally. However, Beijing says the bigger budgets are aimed only at modernizing and improving conditions for the 2.3 million-member People’s Liberation Army, the world’s largest standing military.
“China has a tougher road to travel than other large nations in terms of national defense modernization. We can only rely on ourselves for research and development of most of our military technology,” Legislative Spokesman Fu Ying said.
“Meanwhile, we need to ceaselessly improve conditions for our soldiers,” Fu said.
Fu spoke at a news conference on Wednesday, ahead of the formal announcement of the military budget early Thursday. She said that China’s military posture remains strictly defensive and that it has never used “gunboats” to advance its trade interests.
Despite such assurances, neighboring countries have increased their own military spending in part to counter China’s rise.
In the past several years, Chinese and Japanese ships have frequently confronted each other near a set of contested East China Sea islands. China and India also have a disputed border high in the Himalayas.
China also has disputes with several neighbors over territory in the South China Sea, where US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said last week that Beijing is expanding outposts as part of an “aggressive” effort to assert sovereignty.
State Department Spokesman Marie Harf told reporters Wednesday that the US was monitoring China’s military developments. She called for China to be more transparent and use its capabilities “in a manner that’s conducive to maintenance of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.”
Japan increased its defense budget by 2.8 percent this year to a record $42 billion, the third consecutive year of increases following 11 years of declines prior to hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s rise to power in 2012. Planes and naval vessels to counter China’s growing capabilities top the Japanese military’s shopping list.
Even more dramatically, India, the world’s biggest arms importer in recent years, increased its spending this year by 11 percent to $40 billion, with big increases for its navy and air force. New Delhi has expressed concern not only about the disputed land border, but also about the Chinese navy’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean.
China’s official military spending is still less than a third of the US defense budget, a proposed $534 billion this year along with $51 billion for the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. But it comes against a background of anticipated flat or falling American spending on its armed forces in coming years.
The Pentagon and global arms bodies estimate China’s actual military spending may be anywhere from 40 percent to 50 percent more because the official budget doesn’t include the costs of high-tech weapons imports, research and development, and other programs.
Image credits: AP/Ng Han Guan