China increases military spending

China has increased its military budget to 808.230 billion yuans (96,000 million euros), a 12.2% increase since 2013, according to the budget report released this Wednesday as part of the context of the annual opening of the National Popular Assembly (APN) – Chinese Parliament -, in Beijing.

The Government has not detailed if the announced increase is about the expenditure or budgetin 2013, when the rise of the budget was a 10.7% over the spending in 2012.

The renewed vigor given to the military personnel will serve, among others, to strengthen “defense of borders, coast and airspace” and “the development of new and high-tech weapons,” said the Prime Minister, Li Keqiang, in his speech on the work of the Government and the State of the nation, in the great Palace of the people, in Tiananmen Square. China goes through a moment of strong maritime territorial tensions with some of its neighbors, such as Japan and the Philippines.

The military budget of China is the second largest in the world – after the United States-three times that of India, and more than Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Viet Nam together.