Is China's Military Buildup Slowing Down?

China's People's Liberation Army told to learn from Japan's 1894 victory

Richard A. Bitzinger, Asia Times: China’s rapid military buildup is slowing down

It’s defense budget season for the world’s major powers. This week, US President Donald Trump presented his request for military spending for fiscal year 2020, an unprecedented US$750 billion, including a whopping $174 billion slush fund known as the “overseas contingency operations” account (see my last column, Trump’s slush-fund defense budget).

Now China has released its budget for military expenditures for 2019, and it, too, will reach an all-time high of 1.19 trillion yuan ($177.6 billion). This is a 7.5% rise over China’s 2018 defense budget of 1.107 trillion yuan.

At issue is not the fact that Chinese military expenditures are going up, but by how much. Chinese defense spending has increased every year since the mid-1990s, but lately the annual rise has been slowing.

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WNU Editor: It is too early to say that this is a trend.