China continues to splurge with $177 billion defence budget

5th March 2019 - 11:26 GMT | by Gordon Arthur in Hong Kong

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China announced its defence budget for the coming year during the National People’s Congress (NPC) session on 5 March. Expenditure will rise 7.5% to RMB1.19 trillion ($177.61 billion) on the occasion of the communist country’s 70th anniversary of its founding.

This figure compares with RMB1.107 trillion last year, which represented an increase of 8.1% relative to a year earlier. Chinese defence expenditure has been in single figures for four years in a row now, compared to five years of sustained double-digit growth prior to that.

While this year’s rate of increase is lower than in 2018, it still equates …

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