AGENCE FRANCE- PRESSE
BEIJING – China’s defence budget will soar by 17.8 per cent this year, a senior official announced yesterday, as the United States said it wanted to know more about the Asian giant’s intentions.China’s armed forces will get 350.9 billion yuan (about $45 billion U.S.) for 2007, a rise of nearly 53 billion yuan over actual spending in 2006, said Jiang Enzhu, a spokesperson for the National People’s Congress, the legislature.
Just hours after the announcement, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who was on a visit to Beijing, told reporters he would like to know more about what China plans to do with new military hardware.
Jiang, the Chinese spokesperson, said the military expenditure would account for 7.5 per cent of total government expenditure in 2007, compared with 7.4 per cent in 2006.
China’s military expenditure in 2005 amounted to 1.35 per cent of Chinese gross domestic product, compared with 4.03 per cent for the United States, Jiang said.
http://digital.montrealgazette.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
Look as if they are preparing for the future!
