Asia Defense | Security | East Asia

Despite a Supposedly Defensive Policy, China’s Military Budget Rises Fast

China’s sustained higher defense spending has altered the military balance in the region.

China’s military budget increases keep painting a picture that’s inconsistent with the country’s claims to a defensive policy.

The rise for 2026 would be 7.0 percent, Chinese Premier Li Qiang told the annual meeting of the parliament, the National People’s Congress, earlier this month. The country would spend 1.9 trillion yuan (roughly $275 billion) on defense, he said.

This is only marginally lower than the 7.2 percent for each of the past three years and consistent with a slowing in annual GDP growth to between 4.5 and 5.0 percent. (The GDP and budget growth rates aren’t directly comparable, because fiscal numbers aren’t adjusted for inflation.)

It should be noted that the official level of defense spending is generally not accepted as accurate. External analysts give considerably higher figures that include, for example, research and development that the armed forces don’t pay for. Many analysts don’t believe, despite Beijing’s claims, that only 1.5 percent of GDP goes to the armed forces.

China has often had double-digit increases in its defense spending: 10.7 percent in 2013, 12.2 percent in 2014, 10.1 percent in 2015. Declines in the rate of growth since then have coincided with slower GDP expansion.

This still leaves China’s neighbors facing enormous military power on their doorsteps. China’s sustained higher defense spending has altered the military balance in the region and pushed many countries in the region to respond. They will not stop. Chinese defense spending is promoting an arms race.

Another issue is lack of transparency, particularly the purpose of such consistently large defense budgets.

This adds to existing concerns. China has used grey-zone tactics, some with its maritime militia and coast guard, to intimidate neighbors in the South China Sea. As ASPI’s Pressure Points project details, China has systematically used a variety of non-kinetic, close-proximity, and unsafe encounters in an effort to coerce neighboring states without using force directly.

Further, China’s militarization of the South China Sea – especially in the Paracel and Spratly islands, including setting up of military bases and intelligence and surveillance posts – shows the gap between China’s rhetoric and reality.

The Chinese government’s Xinhua News Agency maintains that “adjusting defense budgets to meet national security demands is a sovereign right” and that the country’s military spending is merely to “safeguard its sovereignty, security, and development interests.” But China also claims “it is the only major country in the world to enshrine........

© The Diplomat