China has announced a double-digit increase in its secretive military budget but insisted the annual outlay of more than 90 billion dollars posed no external threat, despite concern worldwide.
The defence budget will rise 12.7 percent in 2011 to 601.1 billion yuan ($91.7 billion), according to Li Zhaoxing, spokesman of the national parliament and a former foreign minister.
He said the figure was contained in a budgetary report submitted for approval to the Communist Party-controlled National People\'s Congress, which opens its annual 10-day session on Saturday.
"China has always paid attention to controlling the size of defence spending," Li told reporters, describing spending as "relatively low" as a percentage of gross domestic product compared with the rest of the world.
Li said the figure represented six percent of the total national budget in the world\'s second-largest economy.
But the number represents a return to double-digit increases in military spending, which have alarmed the United States, Australia and several of China\'s Asian neighbours.
That multi-year trend had been broken in 2010 when the budget rose 7.5 percent. In any case, many analysts say the announced budget is far lower than actual spending.
The People\'s Liberation Army -- the world\'s largest -- is hugely secretive about its defence programmes, but insists its modernisation is purely defensive in nature to protect China\'s vast land and sea borders.
"This will not pose a threat to any country," Li said.
Willy Lam, a China analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the published military budget -- which he said was likely only one-third to one-half of actual spending -- will be poured into next-generation equipment.
"The return to this double-digit PLA budget reflects the growing power of the PLA," Lam told AFP. "They are trying to close the gap with Russia and the United States."
