China takes spending on its military to new level

Published on Friday 4 March 2011 17:31

China will beef up its military budget by 12.7 per cent this year, the government has announced, a return to double-digit spending increases that will stir regional unease.

Its growing military clout has coincided with a more assertive diplomatic tone, evident in spats last year with Japan and other Asian countries over disputed islands and exploration rights.

Chinese parliamentary spokesman Li Zhaoxing said the defence budget would be $91.5 billion (56.2bn) in 2011. The budget went up by just 7.5 per cent in 2010, after a long period of double-digit hikes.

Many experts believe China's actual spending on the 2.3 million-strong People's Liberation Army is higher than admitted.

"It's widely accepted that these figures bear only a marginal relationship with the actual overall spending. Overall, it means the Chinese are saying we are going to (boost] our defence budget, whatever the real numbers are," said Dean Cheng, a China security expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

China, the world's second-largest economy, often points out its defence spending pales in comparison with the United States. The Pentagon last month rolled out a record base budget for fiscal year 2012 of $553 billion, up $22 billion from the 2010 level.

But China has made some eyecatching moves in recent months, none more so than conducting its first test flight of a stealth fighter jet when US defence secretary Robert Gates was visiting Beijing in January.

China could also launch its first aircraft carrier this year, according to Chinese sources, a year earlier than US military analysts had expected.

"The PLA is an important and powerful force in decision-making and there is obviously a desire to signal to the Chinese public and Chinese nationalists that China is going to continue to get stronger," said Rory Medcalf of Australian think-tank the Lowy Institute.