Chinese leader Xi Jinping said the country is stepping up preparedness for military combat, in what will be seen as a chilling warning to the globe. China last week announced it was increasing its military spending by six percent, taking the annual budget to £146bn. Collin Koh, a Research Fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said Beijing senses an urgent need to bolster its defences. “A rollback on military modernisation, especially in numerical terms expressed in the defence budget, could send a wrong signal to the domestic and external audiences,” he said.