Beijing to spend 7.2% more on defence in 2025

China will set a 7.2 per cent hike in defence spending for 2025, in keeping with annual single-digit increases in the past decade, even as its economy is experiencing a slowdown.

- Lim Min Zhang

BEIJING -

The country's 2025 official defence budget of 1.784 trillion yuan (S$328.3 billion) was revealed in the Chinese government's budget estimates issued on March 5, at the opening of the National People's Congress (NPC) annual meeting.

Thousands of delegates from China's national Parliament and top political advisory body are meeting in Beijing this week as part of the country's biggest political event of the year, called the Two Sessions.

Since 2016, China has mostly announced increases in the annual defence budget of about 7 per cent. It has the second-highest defence budget in the world, although it still spends far less than the US.

But the country's slowing economy has raised questions about how the military spending increases can be sustained, especially amid other competing domestic priorities such as boosting consumption, social insurance, and science and technology investment.