Beijing [China], March 5 (ANI): China on Thursday lowered its GDP growth target to around 4 percent to 5 percent and announced a 7 percent increase in military spending this year, bringing total defense spending to approximately USD 275 billion, according to Chinese state media.
China’s defense budget growth is expected to remain at 7 percent in 2026, according to a draft report submitted to the country’s national legislature for review, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The increase marks the 11th consecutive year of single-digit growth in China’s defense budget. The percentage rise is slightly lower than last year’s 7.2 percent increase and represents the slowest growth since 2021, state media said. The defense budget had risen by 7.2 percent annually in 2023, 2024, and 2025.
The estimates were presented in the government work report submitted by Chinese Premier Li Qiang to the annual meeting of China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress, which opened at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday.
According to the Global Times, China’s defense spending remains comparatively modest across key relative indicators, including its share of GDP, per capita defense expenditure, and defense expenditure per military personnel.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior leaders attended the meeting, which is scheduled to continue for a week and will formally roll out China’s 15th Five-Year Plan. The meeting comes ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned visit to China and a meeting with Xi Jinping. Trump last visited China in 2017.
Last month, Xi dismissed one of the Chinese military’s most senior officers, Zhang Youxia. The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country’s top political advisory body, also removed three retired military generals—Han Weiguo, Gao Jin, and Liu Lei—according to a report by Xinhua on Monday. Liu Lei previously headed the military court of the People’s Liberation Army.
Meanwhile, the main targets outlined in Li’s work report include a consumer price index increase of around 2 percent, the creation of 12 million new urban jobs, and a 10 percent rise in research and development spending.
According to the US Department of Defense’s 2025 report to Congress on China’s military, China’s total defense spending in 2024 was estimated at approximately USD 304 billion to USD 377 billion, or 32 percent to 63 percent higher than Beijing’s officially announced budget of USD 231 billion.
In 2024, China announced that its defense budget had increased by an inflation-adjusted 5.2 percent compared to 2023, reaching about USD 231 billion. The report noted that economic forecasts predict China’s economic growth rate will slow to around 3 percent to 4 percent by 2030, down from an average of nearly 8 percent annually over the past decade, which may constrain future defense budget growth. (ANI)
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