Beijing: China on Wednesday announced a hefty hike of 12.2 per cent in its defence budget for the world’s largest armed forces to $132 billion, the biggest rise since 2011 and nearly four times that of India's military expenditure.
China plans to raise its defence budget by 12.2 per cent to 808.2 billion yuan (about $132 billion) this year, according to the budgetary proposals presented by Prime Minister Li Keqiang to China’s legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC).
China’s plan to hike the spending on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) this year came amid its standoff with Japan and a major US military push into Asia Pacific. China last year spent about $117.7 billion on defence, a 10.7 per cent increase from 2012. The rise in defence spending was 11.2 per cent in 2012 and 12.7 per cent in 2011.
Curiously this year, China has not announced its domestic security budget for all the provinces which last year was fixed at 769.1 billion yuan far above its defence budget that year.
