China hikes 2015 defence budget by 10.1 per cent, lowest in past five years

NEW DELHI: China on Thursday announced a 10.1% hike in its defence budget for 2015, the lowest increase in the past five years but enough to fuel mordernisation drive of its military in comparison with India’s defence allocation.

The Chinese government allocated 886.9 billion yuan ($144.2 billion approximately). This makes China the second-largest military spender in the world following the US, whose defence budget was $600.4 billion in 2013. India had last Saturday announced a modest 7.9% increase in its defence budget.
This 10.1% rise is the lowest defence hike in China since 2010, when it was over 7%. The hikes in defence spending during the past four years were in double-digits. Diplomatic sources said that reason behind the decrease could be the slowdown in the Chinese economy, besides President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive which also covers the country’s military establishment. The Chinese economy grew 7.4% in 2014, registering the weakest annual expansion in more than two decades.

That the president has launched a massive drive against corruption was explained by Ambassador Le Yucheng earlier this week. “Xi Jinping has taken the building of a fine party culture, a clean government and struggle against corruption to a new level. It has adopted a zero-tolerance attitude towards corruption cases… Up to now, tens of thousands of officials have been punished according to the party discipline and state law,” Yucheng told a select gathering of scholars, diplomats and scribes in New Delhi on Tuesday night.

Noted China expert and JNU professor Srikanth Kondapalli pointed out that decision to reduce the defence budget does not imply much in real terms. “The double digit defence allocation is enough to fuel mordernisation of Chinese Armed Forces. Besides this $144. 2 billion allocation does not include China’s defence imports and spending for People’s Liberation Army for internal purpose,” Kondapalli told ET. He claimed that Beijing’s defence budget would double and could touch $300 billion if imports and PLA’s other budget is taken into consideration.

Describing the 2015 defence budget rise as “moderate and reasonable,” Chen Zhou, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, said the rise was in line with China's defence needs.