At the ongoing session of the 11th National People's Conference (NPC), spokesman Li Zhaoxing announced the country's military expenditure would top 480.68 billion yuan this year, an increase of 62.48 billion yuan or 14.9 percent, over last year. The increase has once again put the country's military in the international spotlight.

China's defense spending has long been within a moderate growth range.

The annual double-digit spending increase of recent years is mainly aimed at making up for the military inadequacies of past decades. Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics show the country's expenditure increased 1.23 percent year on year from 1979-89, with an annual negative six percent growth compared with the yearly 7.49 percent consumer price index (CPI) growth. The average growth rate stood at 6.1 percent from 1990-97.