According to a draft budget report submitted to the national legislature on March 5, the Chinese government is seeking a defense budget of 1.78 trillion yuan ($246 billion) for the 2025 fiscal year, a 7.2-percent year-on-year increase.
If approved by lawmakers, the proposed expenditure will maintain single-digit growth for the 10th consecutive year since 2016, and the percentage increase will be the same as the past two fiscal years.
The figures were included in a report prepared by the Ministry of Finance and distributed to lawmakers at the opening meeting of the third session of the 14th National People’s Congress in the Chinese capital.
At the NPC session last year, the central government proposed a defense budget of 1.67 trillion yuan for the 2024 fiscal year, a 7.2 percent year-on-year increase. The 2023 defense budget was proposed at 1.55 trillion yuan, also up 7.2 percent from the previous year.
The annual Government Work Report, released at the March 5 opening meeting, said that significant progress had been made in national defense and military affairs over the past year.
“In the new year, we will thoroughly implement Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military, and follow the military strategic guidelines for the new era. We will … spare no effort to achieve the goals set by the Party for the centenary of the People’s Liberation Army,” the report read.
“We will further advance military training ..., accelerate the development of new combat capabilities, and establish a modern military theory system with Chinese characteristics,” it said.
Lou Qinjian, spokesman for the third session of the 14th NPC, told a March 4 news briefing that China’s military strength is needed to safeguard peace.
“A China with strong national defense capabilities can better defend its national sovereignty, security and development interests, more effectively fulfill its international responsibilities as a major country, and better maintain global peace and stability,” he said.
China’s defense spending to GDP ratio has remained below 1.5 percent for many years, lower than the world average, Lou noted.
The world’s largest spender on military affairs is the United States, whose proposed military budget for 2025 is $850 billion. A large proportion of the money would be used against China, according to the US National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, which has marked out China as an “adversarial nation”.
