China Announces Trillion Yuan Defence Budget - Three Times That Of India

At the ongoing National People’s Conference (NPC) session in Beijing, China has announced a defence budget of 1.11 trillion yuan, translating to roughly $175 billion dollars, three times India’s defence budget of just over $60 billion dollars.

The Chinese defence budget has seen a growth of 8 per cent over last year, exceeding the 7 per cent and 7.6 per cent rates of growth in 2017 and 2016 respectively.

The Chinese Prime Minister (PM) also announced a target of 6.5 per cent growth rate for the economy.

China is second to only the United States in military spending, which spends well over $600 billion its military.

The Chinese budget increase comes at the back of Chinese premier Xi Jinping’s announcement that he wants to build a ‘world class’ military force by 2050. Since coming to power in 2012, Jinping has tried to cement his leadership over the military, which saw the army being asked to pledge absolute loyalty to him last year.

The NPC is also expected to remove the two term limit on presidency during the session, which will ensure that Jinping can remain in power for much longer than currently allowed under the Chinese constitution, a move that has led to much furore in the country.