China says military spending will go up 17.6 percent in 2008
The Associated Press
Published: March 4, 2008
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BEIJING: China said Tuesday that spending on its military this year will jump by 17.6 percent compared with 2007.
The increase follows a similar one last year. China has had double-digit increases in military spending every year since the early 1990s.
Most of the increase will go to boosting salaries and to pay for higher oil prices, with moderate increased spending for armaments, said Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for the National People's Congress.
He said spending would total $59 billion in 2008. Other countries say China vastly underestimates how much it spends on its military and the real figure could be three times as much as the publicly released figure.
China has said spending grew 17.8 percent during 2007, to nearly $45 billion. It was the largest annual increase in more than a decade.
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The 2007 figure put China roughly in the same neighborhood as Japan, Russia and Britain in defense spending, although it spends less than one-tenth of what the U.S. military costs. The Pentagon says China's real defense spending may be much more, because the official budget doesn't include major weapons purchases and other items.