China boosts defence budget by 8.1%
Kicking off the National People’s Congress session on 5 March, China announced a defence budget of RMB1.107 trillion ($175 billion), which equates to an increase of 8.1% compared to a year ago.
Significantly, this marks a greater increase than in 2017, when the defence budget expanded by 7% to RMB1.044 trillion ($151.5 billion).
In 2016 the budget had grown 7.6%, the first time in recent years where defence spending dropped below double-digit growth. The new norm for China thus appears to be single-digit growth.
Delivering the national budget, Premier Li Keqiang said his nation would ‘advance all aspects of military
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