China defence budget now over 3 times that of India
Beijing: China, the world's second largest military spender after the US, Tuesday announced a 7.5 per cent increase in its defence budget for this year, hiking it to a whopping USD 177.61 billion, over three times that of India.
The 2019 defence budget will be 1.19 trillion yuan (about USD 177.61 billion), according to a draft budget report submitted by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the opening of the annual session of China's Parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), on Tuesday.
The increase this year is lower than that of last year's 8.1 per cent which amounted to USD 175 billion. Last year in yuan terms China had allocated 1.11 trillion yuan.
China, which increased its defence budget in double digits till 2015, has been lowering it to single digit hikes since 2016. China's budgeted defence spending growth rate stood at 7.6 per cent in 2016, 7 per cent in 2017 and 8.1 per cent in 2018 as its economy too has been steadily slowing down after a double-digit growth in 2010.
With this year's increase, China's defence spending moved closer to the USD 200 billion mark, making it the highest spender on defence after the United States.
India's defence budget this year was increased by 6.87 per cent to Rs 3.18 lakh crore against last year's allocation of Rs 2.98 lakh crore, notwithstanding expectations of a major hike when China and Pakistan were bolstering their military capabilities. Premier Li, who readout a 40-page work report of his government during the inaugural session of the NPC on Tuesday spoke about continued efforts of China to strengthen the military in terms of weaponry and training besides emphasising on "political loyalty" of the armed forces to President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC). "Our work to develop national defence and armed forces guided by Xi Jinping's thinking on strengthening the military. We will further do efforts to ensure the political loyalty of the armed forces, strengthen through reform, science and technology and run them in accordance with law," he said.
"We will observe fundamental principle and system of absolute party leadership over the armed forces and fully enforce the system of ultimate responsibility resting with the chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC)," he said.
