China s $175bn defence budget three times higher than India s (Lead)
Beijing March 5 (IANS) China on Monday hiked its defence spending to 8.1 per cent of its GDP pegging its economic growth at 6.5 per cent in 2018.
China s defence budget in 2017 was 7 per cent of the country s GDP and has been in single digit since 2013 but this year s military spending is the highest in three years. The budget of $175 billion is three times higher than India s defence spending.
China s economy which grew in double-digit for three-decades has slowed down over the years.
The economic target was announced by Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang when he delivered the work report to the National People s Congress (NPC) China s Parliament which opened on Monday.
China has the world s largest standing Army and spends the most on defence after the US in the world. President Xi Jinping has vowed to make the Chinese Army a modern force by cutting down its troops.
This was mentioned by Li while delivering the work report at the Great Hall where nearly 3 000 Chinese lawmakers had gathered.
"We have completed the task of reducing the armed by 300 000 troops " Li said at the opening session of the NPC.
The two-week Parliament session will be a historic one as the rubber-stamp legislature will remove the two-term cap on the Chinese presidency giving Xi unfettered power and license to rule until he retires or dies.
The party s powerful Central Committee in February passed a proposal to remove the two-term cap on Chinese presidency -- a move that has startled the world.
China s revered leader Deng Xiaoping in 1980s had restricted the presidential five-year tenure to two to avoid the perils which the cult around Mao Zedong had brought.
In 2017 at the Communist Party s once in a five-year meet Xi began his second five-term without announcing his successors a convention his predecessor Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin had followed.
The move was widely speculated as Xi s desire to rule the country of 1.4 billion beyond the customary 10 years.
Xi is China s most powerful leader since Mao. He has been conferred with the status of "core" an honorific given only to Mao and Deng.
--IANS
gsh/soni/hs
