China's Defense-Spending Confusion Highlights Strategic Worries
- Military budget to increase at slowest pace since 1991
- Pentagon has warned that China’s opacity increases tensions
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China omitted a key defense spending figure from its budget for the first time in almost four decades -- before an official disclosed the number -- highlighting concerns about transparency in the world’s largest military.
While authorities said defense expenditures would rise “about 7 percent” this year, the budget report published by the Ministry of Finance on Sunday omitted the figures. Later, a ministry information officer said China’s military budget would increase 7 percent this year to 1.044 trillion yuan ($151 billion). That’s the slowest pace since at least 1991.