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| Type 022 Houbei class missile boat (Wiki) |
By Jason Miks
China’s annual defense budget is set to double by 2015 and exceed that of all other major Asia-Pacific countries, according to figures from leading defense consultancy IHS Jane’s.
The numbers, which were sent through to me this week, suggest China’s defense budget will soar to $238 billion – more than the next 12 leading Asia-Pacific countries combined, and four times that of second place Japan, which will be spending an estimated $64 billion.
As Rajiv Biswas, chief economist for the Asia-Pacific at IHS Global Insight, noted, Beijing has been broadly able to devote an increasingly large portion of its overall budget towards defense, and “has been steadily building up its military capabilities for more than two decades.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat