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Nation
Nation
UPDATED: April 14, 2014 NO. 16 APRIL 17, 2014
Building a Reasonable Power
China's military spending is growing moderately
By Yin Pumin
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INCREASING STRENGTH: Chinese warships participate in the China-Russia Maritime Joint Exercise 2013 in Vladivostok on July 10, 2013 (ZHA CHUNMING)

China's defense spending, despite rapid increases, matches the legitimate national defense needs of a large country.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made these remarks in response to a question on China's rising defense budget after a speech sponsored by the Koerber Foundation in Berlin on March 28 during his two-day state visit to Germany.

In early March, the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, passed the defense budget for this year. According to it, China plans to raise its defense budget by 12.2 percent to 808.2 billion yuan ($130.2 billion) in 2014. The budget marked the biggest increase since a 12.7-percent jump in 2011. The increases in 2012 and 2013 were 11.2 and 10.7 percent, respectively.

Moderate growth

Echoing Xi's opinion, experts believe that China's defense spending is reasonable and its growth is in line with the country's economic and security conditions.

"The country's defense spending is rising along with other expenditure items, such as education and social security," said Qian Lihua, a major general who used to head the Foreign Affairs Office of the Ministry of National Defense (MND). "It is unrealistic and unreasonable for China's defense spending not to go up," he added.

According to Sun Huangtian, Deputy Director of the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), this year's defense budget will be spent mainly on modernizing the army's weapons and equipment, improving living and working conditions for service personnel, adjusting expenses for army maintenance and enhancing its counter-terrorism and disaster relief capabilities.

"In fact, the increases in military expenditure by China are limited in scale," Sun said. "So we will ensure that every cent of the money is spent wisely to boost the army's effectiveness."

According to official statistics, China spent 720.2 billion yuan ($116.02 billion) on national defense in 2013, which accounted for only 1.4 percent of the country's GDP, less than many other countries such as Russia or France.

"The current defense expenditure can only support the basic running of the military and the purchase of weapons and there is still a lot of potential for the military to be stronger," said Song Zhongping, a military affairs commentator in Beijing.

Military experts believe that an appropriate increase in defense spending will better guarantee the realization of the Chinese military's goal of "being able to combat and win battles."

"Currently, the Chinese military, which started its development later than other nations, shoulders heavy responsibilities as it is at a stage of intensifying efforts to accomplish the tasks of military mechanization and IT utilization," said Yin Zhuo, Director of the Expert Consultation Committee of the PLA Navy.

According to Yin, there is a drastic difference between building an information-based army and a traditional army. "For example, the money used to buy a battleship with information-based technology today can buy four to five old-fashioned battleships. Hi-tech weapons and equipment require more money to purchase and maintain," Yin said.

Money for military personnel is also needed. "With the economic development, salaries of military personnel should also be promoted accordingly," Yin said. "Especially under the current situation, the military needs more high-quality personnel to use and maintain its hi-tech weapons and equipment. It will be difficult to attract and retain outstanding personnel without high salaries."

"We are out to protect China's economic interests, but we have a long way to go in terms of hi-tech military hardware and exercises," said Wang Huayong, Political Commissar of the East China Sea Fleet of the PLA Navy.

Reuters quoted experts who said that it could be decades before China's military is a match for the U.S. armed forces. Statistics show that the United States remains the world's biggest defense spender, with a budget of $582.4 billion in 2013.

Due to historical reasons, there is a big gap between China's defense input and economic development, according to military experts.

"The growth in China's defense budget should be seen as a 'compensatory' rise," said Chen Zhou, a researcher with the Academy of Military Sciences.

According to Chen, after the reform and opening-up policies were initiated in the late 1970s, most of China's limited resources were invested in economic construction while defense expenditure fell for more than 10 years.

"The reform and opening up help China register a high and steady economic growth rate, which remarkably improves people's living standards. But under-spending delayed the upgrading of China's military. As a result, there was a 'generation gap' between the militaries of some advanced countries and China," Chen said.

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