Neighbours wary over 8pc rise in China’s defence budget

CHINA will fuel its ambitious military modernisation programme with an 8.1 per cent increase in defence spending this year, as the Asian giant becomes increasingly assertive under President Xi Jinping.

The biggest increase to the budget in three years comes amid rising anxiety among China’s neighbours over its rapid development of new military capabilities, including stealth fighters, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and anti-satellite missiles.

Mr Xi’s move to lift limits on presidential terms, effectively clearing the way for him to rule for life, was met with enthusiasm from delegates gathered for the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, which meets this week.

Wang Zhen, the secretary general of the parliamentary session, told the Congress that there was a “unanimous call” from all those they surveyed about the reform scrapping term limits, and that was the “main consideration” for proposing it. Mr Wang’s reading of the term limits proposal prompted a bout of sustained applause from the delegates in the Great Hall of the People.

The increase of China’s defence budget to 1.1 trillion yuan (£125billion) was announced on the opening day of the political gathering yesterday.

It compares with a 7 per cent increase last year and 7.6 per cent in 2016, which marked the first time in six years that spending growth had not risen into double figures.

China has the world’s second largest defence budget, but it remains only about a quarter of what the United States spends on its military. Mr Trump said last year that he intended to increase US military spending by 10 per cent to $603 billion (£491bn).