China to raise defence budget by 8.1% in 2018

BEIJING: China announced on Monday an 8.1% defence budget increase for 2018, giving the world's largest armed forces a boost after spending slowed in the previous two years.
Beijing will spend 1.11 trillion yuan (RM681 billion) on its military, according to a budget report presented before the opening session of the annual National People's Congress, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The outlay compares with a seven percent increase last year and 7.6% in 2016, which marked the first time in six years that spending growth was not in double figures.
China spent US$151 billion on the People's Liberation Army last year, the second largest defence budget in the world but still four times less than the US$603 billion US outlay, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank.
The defence budget increase has roughly followed the same pace as China's national economic output in recent years. The economy grew by 6.9% in 2017 and the government said Monday it will target growth of around 6.5% in 2018.
China's neighbours and the United States have watched warily as Beijing has modernised the world's largest army, reducing its ground troops to two million soldiers while spending on state-of-the-art hardware and weapons.
At the same time, Beijing has imposed increasingly assertive claims to vast expanses of the contested South China Sea, while engaging in confrontations with Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea and with India over Himalayan border regions. — AFP