By Franz-Stefan Gady
Details on what precisely China is spending money on remain murky.
China’s defense budget will increase by ten percent in 2015, according to a spokesperson for the National People’s Congress (NPC). “I can reveal the rough situation. Among the recommendations for 2015 … [with regards to the] defense budget and the increase in defense spending, the magnitude is probably about 10 percent,” Fu Ying stated, according to Reuters.
This would bring the official military budget to around $145 billion this year, representing around 5 percent of total central government expenditures and somewhere around two percent of China’s expected overall GDP this year.
Officially, this would be the lowest increase in defense spending for the past five years, partially due to a projected slower annual GDP growth rate of seven percent for 2015. However, in comparison to other countries such as India (which revealed its annual military budget last week), the Chinese defense budget does not take into account various expenditures such as weapons imports, research and development, and money spent on the PLA’s strategic forces. Real military expenditures may be as much as 40 – 55 percent higher.
Read the full story at The Diplomat