Quote:China has announced a military budget of 1.11 trillion yuan ($175bn; £126bn) for the coming year.

The figure, an 8% increase on last year, was announced as the annual meeting of parliament got under way in Beijing.

Prime Minister Li Keqiang also set a target of 6.5% growth for the economy.

The National People's Congress (NPC) is also expected to remove the two-term presidential limit, enabling Xi Jinping to remain in office indefinitely.

The move, which was long expected but has been controversial even in China, has helped cement Mr Xi's status as the most powerful leader since Chairman Mao Zedong.

Thousands of Chinese legislators at Monday's meeting burst into applause when the plan to scrap the two-term limit was read out to the chamber. The vote on the proposal will take place on 11 March and is expected to be unanimously approved.

(Mar 8, 2018 10:55 AM)Loui2 Wrote:  That's the equivalent of about $175 billion USD.
If you think that's massive, look at the USA military budget (about $597 billion USD)

(Mar 7, 2018 03:11 PM)webdev77 Wrote:  The US has already broken $600 billion in defense spending. Won't be too many more years until it breaks $1 trillion annually.

(Mar 9, 2018 12:07 AM)Int Ptr Wrote:  People need to stop bringing up how the USA's budget is bigger, tbh. This isn't a comparison between military budgets.

While true, it is news that China is expanding their budget giving the rising tensions on the Korean peninsula at this moment in time, and their expansionist interests in the South China Sea.

Their military modernization is also something to look at. China is increasingly becoming the second global superpower (they're already fairly close), and they already are in the region. I have no doubts that China's budget will continue rising through the next few years and start reaching 300-350 billion, and more.

(Mar 8, 2018 12:58 PM)illuminati▲ Wrote:  For china, that is a lot.
It's obviously nothing compared to the United States.

(Mar 20, 2018 01:24 PM)Loui2 Wrote:  Let me justify why I made a comparison.
OP said that it seems massive. How do we evaluate if this budget is massive? We can do a comparison with another country as a metric and what better country to pick for a comparison than the one with the highest military budget in the world?

I mean... If I said elephants seem massive, I would have to compare it to something to know it's massive.
If a given universe consists of elephants and only elephants, how would you know an elephant is massive? You can't, you have no reference.


It's a lot in comparison to what?
If you want to restrict that question to only China then we can take a look at it's military budget percentage increase from previous years.
In 2018 the military budget grew by about 8.1%
In 2017 the military budget grew by about 7%
In 2016 the military budget grew by about 7.6%
In 2015 the military budget grew by about 10%
In 2014 the military budget grew by about 11%
In 2013 the military budget grew by about 10.7%
In 2012 the military budget grew by about 11.6%
In 2011 the military budget grew by about 12.7%
It seems the military budget has been growing more or less at similar percentage increases. When you look at it from a China only angle, the budget does not seem so massive for China. With their GDP it seems like it could be a lot higher.

Now if you compare China's military budget to other countries military budget, that's where you get a good perspective on how massive the budget is. I won't bring up USA for a comparison because that would just make China's budget look like peanuts in comparison, which was actually my point when I did my initial comparison.
Instead lets use Russia who's military budget is second to China. Russia's military budget for 2018 is about 46 billion.
China's military budget is almost 4 times that of Russia's. We can say China's military budget is massive with this comparison.

Just to be clear, I never stated China's budget isn't massive.