TIL Desk/World/Beijing/ China, the second-largest military spender after the United States, has hiked its defence budget from last year’s $177.6 billion to $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, according to the official media.
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 Friday to National People’s Congress, 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. China’s this year’s defence budget will be around 1.27 trillion yuan (about $179 billion) against last year’s $177.61 billion, according to the draft submitted to the NPC.
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.
