China raises military budget by 13 per cent

Mar 4, 2011, 4:02 GMT

Beijing - China announced an almost 13-per-cent rise in its annual military budget on Friday, following international concern over consecutive large increases in recent years.

The draft defence budget for 2011 was set at 601 billion yuan (91.5 billion dollars), up 12.7 per cent from 2010, a spokesman for China's nominal parliament told reporters.

'The government has always tried to limit military spending,' National People's Congress spokesman Li Zhaoxing said. 'It has set the defence spending at a reasonable level to ensure the balance between national defence and economic development,' he added.

The rise was slightly higher than expected, after last year's 7.5-per-cent budget hike was the smallest percentage increase for some 20 years.

China says it needs the increases to modernize its 2.5-million-strong People's Liberation Army. But foreign politicians and analysts have raised concerns over the speed and transparency of its military expansion.

But Li, a former foreign minister and former ambassador to the United States, insisted the military spending was 'transparent and defensive in nature.'

'There is no such thing as the so-called hidden military expenditure in China, and the budget is subject to auditing from the government and military,' he said.

The increase would mainly fund pay rises for soldiers, training, infrastructure and 'moderately improving armaments,' Li said.

'China is committed to peaceful development and a national defence policy that is defensive in nature,' he said.

The 3,000-member National People's Congress is scheduled to discuss and approve the national budget and a five-year national development plan during its 10-day annual session, which begins on Saturday. China was second in the list of the world's biggest military spenders in 2009, behind only the United States, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported last year.

China's estimated military spending tripled in real terms over 10 years of rapid economic growth to reach 99 billion dollars in 2009, about one seventh of the estimated US spending, the institute said.

'It is true that China's defence budget is raised a bit, but the ratio of the defence spending to the country's gross domestic product remains very low, much lower than those of many other countries,' Li said on Friday.

Some Western critics claim China's real military spending is up to three times the budget figure.

In a reflection of China's growing military might, a prototype of China's first known stealth fighter plane made a test flight in January.

The US Defence Department in January quoted Marine Corps Colonel Dave Lapan as saying: 'China is developing and fielding large numbers of advanced medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles, new attack submarines equipped with advanced weapons, increasingly capable long-range air defence systems, electronic warfare and computer network attack capabilities, advanced fighter aircraft and counter-space systems.'

China has also developed an aircraft-carrier flight training centre in the central city of Wuhan and is expected to launch its first carrier in the next few years.

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