Graphic: Global Times

China on Tuesday announced a defense budget draft for 2024 worth 1.66554 trillion yuan ($231.36 billion), an increase of 7.2 percent from the previous year.

The moderate figure reflects China's reasonable, restrained and steady steps in national defense development, which takes factors including military modernization, external security environments and economic development into account, experts said.

The proposed defense budget was released in a draft budget report issued at the opening of the second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature, on Tuesday.

China's defense budget has maintained single-digit growth for nine consecutive years since 2016. The growth rate was also set at 7.2 percent in 2023, while stably moved between six and eight percent in recent years. 

Zhang Junshe, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times that China's defense expenditure has been stable in recent years, and the consecutive single-digit growth showed that the increase is moderate and reasonable.

Many countries have hiked their military expenditures in recent years, Zhang said, citing the aggressive defense spending hike by countries like the US and Japan.

According to a Reuters report, US President Joe Biden in December 2023 reportedly authorized a record $886 billion annual military spending for fiscal 2024, nearly four times China's figure.

Japan's Cabinet in December 2023 approved a hefty 16 percent increase in military spending in 2024, in addition to easing its postwar ban on lethal weapons exports, underscoring a shift away from the country's self-defense-only principle, AP reported.

Zhang continued to note that, compared with other major military powers like the US, China's defense expenditure in share of its GDP is also at a low level.

In recent years, China's defense spending has generally accounted only about 1.3 percent of the country's GDP, while according to publicly available data, this figure for the US is about 3.5 percent, and the guideline figure for NATO members is 2 percent.

China can easily raise its military expenditure more radically thanks to the country's comprehensive development, and the fact that it is not doing so reflects the restraint in the setting of defense budget, analysts said.

Two J-20 stealth fighter jets attached to an aviation brigade of the PLA Air Force take off for a flight training exercise in early February of 2024. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Liu Weipeng)

From a policy perspective, China's national defense strategy is defensive in nature, China will not participate in an arms race with any country, and China takes a path of peaceful development, which is different from the approaches of some Western countries, particularly the US that pursues global hegemony, Zhang said.

Western media often misinterpret and smear China's defense budget, and these hypes are of double standards and bear malicious intentions, Zhang said.

Lou Qinjian, the spokesperson for the second session of the 14th NPC, said at a press conference on Monday that in recent years, to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, to meet the needs of military transformation with Chinese characteristics, and to better fulfill China's international responsibilities and obligations as a major country, China has maintained reasonable and steady growth of its defense spending consistent with its sound and steady economic and social development, in a move to promote synchronized growth of defense capability and economic strength.

Lou stressed that, compared with major military powers such as the US, China's defense spending is quite low, whether as a percentage of GDP, or in terms of per capita and per-serviceperson.

China is committed to a path of peaceful development, stands ready to share development opportunities with other countries and foster a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation, build a community with a shared future for mankind, and make new contributions to the noble cause of peace and development, the spokesperson said.

Soldiers stand guard at the “5592” watchpoint. Photo: Courtesy of the Xigaze Military Sub-district of the Xizang Military Region

Stabilizing factor

China's military expenditure is mainly used in training missions, the development and production of modern weapons and development, the support of military reform and the welfare of military personnel, observers said.

The mission of any military force should be the ability to fight and win, and based on this concept, the Chinese military holds regular, combat-oriented exercises as realistic as possible, which are costly, another Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times.

The third aircraft carrier of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, the Fujian, holds a mooring test in Shanghai at an undisclosed date around the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. Photo: Screenshot from China Central Television

With technological development, China needs to develop more advanced weapons and equipment and produce them in large quantity so the Chinese military can maintain its capability in safeguarding national sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests, the expert said, noting that while China has developed advanced weapons and equipment like the J-20 stealth fighter jet, the electromagnetic catapults-equipped aircraft carrier Fujian and the DF-17 hypersonic missile, their numbers are far from enough facing the grim security environment in the Asia-Pacific region.

In recent years, the US has continued to conduct frequent, highly intensive close-in reconnaissance operations and hold targeted, provocative military exercises at China's doorstep, in addition to rallying its allies and partners like the Philippines, Australia and Japan in forming a military encirclement to contain China.

Instigated by the US, the Philippines started in 2023 to repeatedly provoke China over Chinese islands and reefs in the South China Sea including Ren'ai Jiao (also known as Ren'ai Reef) and Huangyan Dao (also known as Huangyan Island), granted the US access to additional military bases close to the Taiwan Straits, and held joint exercises and patrols with the US.

Taking advantage of the US' strategy in containing China, Japan also showed worrying signs of a revival of its right-wing militarism by breaking away from its post-war self-defense-only principle and boosting its offensive capabilities.

The AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program by Australia, the UK and the US continues to raise concerns of nuclear proliferation by the international community besides its geopolitical and military significance targeting China.

The global security environment overall also faces great instabilities under the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Under these circumstances, a strong Chinese military supported by a sufficient defense budget serves as a stabilizing factor, as it contributes to peace and stability by deterring security threats in the Asia-Pacific region and contributing to the global balance of power, experts said, noting that the Chinese military is a solid provider of public security goods to the international community, as it regularly conducts UN peacekeeping missions, naval escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia, as well as disaster relief and humanitarian aid operations.

Sufficient defense funding also enables the Chinese military to fulfill its international responsibilities and obligations, analysts said.