BEIJING: China announced on Monday an 8.1 percent defense budget increase for 2018, giving a boost to the modernization of the world’s largest military after spending slowed in the previous two years. At the same time, Beijing has imposed increasingly assertive claims to vast expanses of the contested South China Sea, while engaging in confrontations with Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea and with India over Himalayan border regions. The defense budget increase has roughly kept pace with China’s national economic output in recent years. “We can expect that China’s defense budget will continue to be subordinated to, and coordinated with, China’s economic performance. Closer to home, China has in recent years built artificial islands—with airstrips—capable of hosting military installations in the South China Sea, inflaming tensions with its Southeast Asian neighbors.

Source: Manila Times March 05, 2018 04:18 UTC