China has hiked its defence budget from last year’s $177.6 billion to USD 179 billion, nearly three times that of India, the lowest increment in recent years apparently due to the heavy disruption caused to its economy by the COVID-19. When using constant 2010 dollars to account for inflation, China’s expected defense spending appears to dip from $143.8 billion in 2019 to $140.5 in 2020. (Constant 2010 values are calculated based on GDP projections.)

China, which has the world’s largest military of two million troops, will continue to lower its defence budget growth rate to 6.6 per cent in 2020, according to a draft budget report presented on 22 May, to National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s top legislature. The 2020 defence budget continues to see single-digit growth for a fifth consecutive year. It is the lowest growth rate in recent years.

Spending on the military as a per cent of overall national government spending will rise slightly from 5.06 per cent in 2019 to 5.12 per cent in 2020, and spending as a percent of the central government budget will rise from 33.6 per cent to 36.2 per cent.

China’s total defence spending in 2019 only amounted to a quarter that of the United States, the world’s largest defence spender, while the per capita expenditure was just about one-seventeenth, the report said.

China’s defence spending has been staying at around 1.3 per cent of its gross domestic product for many years, well below the world’s average of 2.6 per cent.

According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the military expenditure figures of China’s defence spending in 2019 amounted to $232 billion.