Military Budget of China

In 2018, China plans to boost its military spending by 8.1% in 2018 as it looks to further advance an ambitious modernization drive for its armed forces. The budget document opened to the media in China's 13th National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing. This reveals that China will spend around $175 billion across all branches of the People Liberation Army. 

As we can see, after President Xi,JinPing took over the government, China central government continued on expanding its defence budget. Mr. Xi really focus on military technology training and advanced development. He just observed Liao Ning fleet last weekend and stressed on technology training and importance of consociation. 

In 2018, during the 13th NPC meeting, the 8.1 % increase is higher than last year's announcement, when it upped military spending 7% over the previous year. Compared with China, US military spending far outweighs China's. The Pentagon has requested a budget of $686 billion in 2019, up $80 billion from 2017.

China's budget announcement comes form president Xi, JinPing, the commander in chief of the country's armed force, focuses on increasing both the sophistication and reach of the country's military. 

Expanding defence budget is a way to translate its potential capability for power into power itself. 

However, there are several issues can be considered for China's military budget. Efforts to explore the connection between China military spending and Chinese military power are lacking of transparency. Although China reported its defence budget every year, however, the money of its defence budget always lower than outside countries estimation. Moreover, China provides limited information on the distribution of its military spending, which obscures spending patterns that may indicate the relative importance of a particular branch of the Chinese military. For example, how China might be responding to perceived eternal threats, and where China is investing in technologies. 

Since President Xi, JinPing will continue leading China central government, to consolidate his goverance under his administration, it is inevitable for him to continuing expanding China's defence budget and developing an advanced China Liberation Army.