CHINA’S defence budget will rise by “about 10 per cent” this year – the slowest pace in the past five years – even as President Xi Jinping seeks to modernise the military and also root out rampant corruption within its ranks.

The budget increase is lower than last year’s 12.2 per cent gain, which brought the 2014 defence budget to more than 808 billion yuan (S$175 billion).

It surprised some military analysts, who had forecast a much bigger increase of up to 20 per cent.

…However, Dr Michael Raska, a research fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, noted that many believe that the actual defence spending is above the officially stated figure as some items might be unaccounted for.

Also, a double-digit growth is still substantial, he said.