China announced on Monday an 8.1 per cent defence budget increase for 2018. Beijing will spend 1.11 trillion yuan (US$175 billion) on its military, according to a budget report presented before the opening session of the annual National People’s Congress. 

 
China spent $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 $603 billion US outlay, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank.  

James Char, a military expert at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University said “...We can expect that China’s defence budget will continue to be subordinated to, and co-ordinated with, China’s economic performance. “It will likely not be over-militarised,” he said.  

The 8.1% increase is higher than last year’s announcement, when it upped military spending by 7% over the previous year. In straight dollar terms, US military spending far outweighs China’s. The Pentagon has requested a budget of $686 billion in 2019, up $80 billion from 2017 according to a CNN report. China’s budget announcement comes as President Xi Jinping, the commander in chief of the country’s armed forces, is seeking to expand his influence within the upper echelon’s of China’s leadership with a change to the constitution to extend his term in office, possibly indefinitely and focuses on increasing both the sophistication and reach of the country’s military.  

In his opening report to parliament, Mr Li said the army must be “strong as stone” in the face of “profound changes in the national security environment”. \
Beiging, (Channel NewsAsia/ CNN/BBC), 05 Mar 2018 -