China increases its military spending by 7.6 percent

• China’s military spending for 2016 will increase by 7.6 percent
• The increase is the smallest since 2010
• The small increase reflected China’s declining economic growth

China announced on Saturday, March 5, that it will increase its military spending this year by 7.6 percent. The increase is the smallest since 2010, reflecting China’s economic slowdown.

Japan Times said spending in all levels of China’s government is being curbed because of slow economic growth. The economic growth rate of the world’s second largest economy fell to a 25-year low of 6.9 percent in 2015 and is expected to decline further this year.

China parliament’s spokesperson Fu Ying said the increase reflected the country’s national defense needs as well as the state of its economy and fiscal revenue.

“China’s military budget will continue to grow this year but the margin will be lower than last year and the previous years,” she said.

The Global Times, a newspaper published by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, said many Chinese people were a bit disappointed with the small increase.

“Ni Lexiong, a professor of political science and military expert at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said he had expected an increase of 12 to 15 percent in response to rising regional tensions.

“Obviously it shows that China wants to demonstrate to the West, including the U.S. and the neighboring countries that it has disputes with, that China sincerely wants to solve the problems through peaceful means,” he said. “But the second reason is that China’s economy is bad indeed.”

China’s lower increase in military spending this year, however, is not to be “sniffed at” compared to much smaller defense spending in most developed countries, said Alexander Neill, a senior fellow for Asia-Pacific security for the International Institute for Strategic Studies based in Singapore.

“It’s reflective of China’s determination to maintain a robust and modern fighting force,” he said.

China’s 2016 budget for military pending amounts to $ 150 billion which represents just a little over a quarter of the United States’ 2016 defense spending budget of $ 573 billion.

Kicker Daily News