The rise to around $150bn a year is still dwarfed by the US budget which stands at $573bn<\/p>\n
Agence France-Presse
Friday 4 March 2016 01.31 EST<\/p>\n
China will raise its defence spending by between 7-8% this year, a senior official has said, a smaller increase than the double-digit rises of the past as Beijing seeks a more efficient military.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s budget will rise to around around 980bn yuan ($150bn) as the Beijing regime increases its military heft and asserts its territorial claims in the South China Sea, raising tensions with its neighbours and with Washington<\/a>.<\/p>\n Defence spending last year was budgeted to rise 10.1% to 886.9bn yuan ($135.39bn), which still only represents about one-quarter that of the United States. The US defence budget for 2016 is $573bn.<\/p>\n \u201cChina\u2019s military budget will continue to grow this year but the margin will be lower than last year and the previous years,\u201d said Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the national people\u2019s congress (NPC), the Communist-controlled parliament.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will be between seven to eight percent.\u201d<\/p>\n The exact increase will be announced on Saturday at the opening of the NPC, Fu told reporters.<\/p>\n The slowdown in spending comes as president Xi Jinping seeks to craft a more efficient and effective People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA), the world\u2019s largest standing military.<\/p>\n At a giant military parade in Beijing last year to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Japan\u2019s World War II defeat, Xi announced the PLA would be reduced by 300,000 personnel.<\/a><\/p>\n But the event also saw more than a dozen \u201ccarrier-killer\u201d anti-ship ballistic missiles rolling through the streets of the capital, with state television calling them a \u201ctrump card\u201d in potential conflicts and \u201cone of China\u2019s key weapons in asymmetric warfare\u201d.<\/p>\n Analysts say that for a fraction of the cost of an aircraft carrier \u2013 for decades the mainstay of Washington\u2019s ability to project power around the world \u2013 the DF-21D missile threatens to alter the military balance in the Pacific.<\/p>\n It has built up artificial islands in the South China Sea \u2013 through which a third of the world\u2019s oil passes, and which Beijing claims almost in its entirety.<\/p>\n