China announced a 7 percent increase in its 2026 defense budget, bringing military expenditure to about $277 billion, Defense News reported Tuesday.
How Does China’s Defense Budget Compare to Regional Spending?
The latest budget, unveiled during the National People’s Congress, or NPC, in Beijing on March 5, represents a slightly smaller percentage rise than the 7.2 percent adjustments recorded in each of the previous three years. Although Beijing describes its defense budget as “comparatively modest” relative to its gross domestic product, per capita defense expenditure and spending per military personnel, the declared total is still roughly five times larger than Japan’s and nine times that of Taiwan, which plans to raise its supplementary defense budget to $40 billion.
Data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, or IISS, also shows that China’s share of total military spending in Asia reached nearly 44 percent last year. The IISS reported that global defense spending reached $2.63 trillion in 2025, largely fueled by higher expenditures in response to rising geopolitical tensions.
What Are the Concerns About Transparency?
The Pentagon has cautioned that China’s publicly announced figures may understate actual spending. Its December report suggested the 2024 budget was likely 32 to 63 percent higher than declared, which excludes categories such as defense-related research and development, internal security forces, capital spending and military mobilization activities.
“There is broad consensus among academic, think-tank and industry experts that China’s publicly announced defense budget does not contain the totality of China’s defense spending,” the Pentagon said in the report.
What Is the Current State of PLA Leadership?
China has been conducting an anti-corruption campaign that has led to the purge of 101 senior People’s Liberation Army leaders since 2022, including two members of the Central Military Commission, or CMC. As a result, only two people, President Xi Jinping and General Zhang Shengmin, represented CMC at a meeting held the same day as the NPC. The commission previously had 11 members.