China boosts defense budget by 7.1% for 2022 amid complex global situation

China announced on Saturday its plan to boost the country’s defense budget by 7.1 percent, to a total of 1.45 trillion yuan ($230 billion) in 2022, with analysts saying that the proposed budget growth is steady and reasonable at a time when China needs to modernize its military capabilities to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity amid severe external threats and an unstable security environment.

The defense budget increase was mentioned in a draft budget report issued at the opening of the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s top legislature, on Saturday.

If approved by lawmakers, the proposed defense budget would mark the single-digit growth for seven consecutive years since 2016 and also a return to a 7-plus percent increase, the highest defense budget growth rate since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The figure was set at 6.8 percent in 2021 and 6.6 percent in 2020. China has maintained single-digit growth in its annual defense budget since 2016.

The defense budget hike for 2022 comes in the context of an unstable security situation around China, and China’s schedule to push forward its military modernization, and is made possible thanks to positive economic growth brought by China’s effective COVID-19 prevention and control measures, experts said.

Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert, told the Global Times on Saturday that the increase in China’s military budget is proper and reasonable given that China is aiming to develop a modernized military.