China will raise defense spending by 7% this year, the slowest pace in the last 3 years

Beijing.- China will raise its defense spending by 7% this year, to 1.91 trillion yuan ($277 billion), after increasing it by 7.2% in 2025, 2024 and 2023 and amid dismissals in the military leadership due to corruption, according to the report presented this Thursday to the National People's Congress (NPC), to which EFE had access. The increase was announced during the opening of the annual session of the Legislative, in which the Prime Minister, Li Qiang, presented the work report of his Government, which emphasizes "persisting in the absolute direction" of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the People's Liberation Army (PLA, Chinese Army). The smallest growth in the defense budget occurs in parallel with the adjustment of the economic growth target for the world's second-largest economy, set by Li at "between 4.5 and 5%" in 2026, after three years positioning it at "around 5%".

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Shake-up in the Military Leadership

The anti-corruption campaign in the military establishment has intensified in recent months with the fall of several high-ranking officers. In January, former Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC, the leading body of the Armed Forces), Zhang Youxia, one of the most influential figures in the Army, was dismissed, in a process that adds to the investigations for alleged disciplinary violations in different bodies. In recent years, former defense ministers Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe, as well as officials from the Rocket Force and the Joint Staff Department, were removed. Last week, the NPC (Legislature) removed without explanation nine high-ranking military officials from its list of deputies, while the Political Consultative Conference (the country's main advisory body) expelled three generals from its standing committee. The investigations have also reached in recent months those responsible for the Missile Force, in charge of the strategic arsenal, and commanders of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. With these moves, the CMC has been reduced to only two of its seven original members, one of whom is Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Modernization of the Armed Forces

Some voices point out that the military budget disclosed by the Chinese authorities does not reflect the true scale of the country's actual defense spending, which in recent years has financed extensive military modernization. Recently, Beijing has given new signs of that process with the commissioning last November of the aircraft carrier Fujian, the third of its fleet and the first equipped with electromagnetic catapults, a technology that until now only the United States also operates. The ship, designed and built entirely in China, represents a leap forward from the previous Liaoning and Shandong and reinforces the goal of having six aircraft carriers by 2035. In addition to this, there are large-scale maneuvers around Taiwan, whose sovereignty Beijing claims, including live-fire drills, blockade simulations, and naval and aerial deployments in multiple directions, as well as the reinforcement of Coast Guard patrols in sensitive areas of the Strait. These advances are part of the modernization strategy promoted by Xi, who already in 2017 stated that China should transform its Armed Forces into a "world-class army" prepared to "fight and win wars".

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International Convulsions

The proposed increase in Chinese military spending is also released following recent attacks by the US and Israel against Iran, which Beijing has condemned, and for which it has criticized Washington, which it accuses of "violating the sovereignty" of the Persian country. The Chinese Foreign Ministry urged respect for Iranian sovereignty and international law, called for avoiding a deterioration of the conflict, and advocated for resuming the diplomatic path for the Iranian nuclear issue. China, a close trading partner of Tehran, also warned of the risk to regional stability and energy security.