SpaceWar.com reports: “China’s defence spending will rise by 7.2 percent in 2025, the same as last year, Beijing said on Wednesday, as its armed forces undergo rapid modernisation and eye deepening strategic competition with the United States.

The country’s expenditure on its armed forces has been on the rise for decades, broadly in line with economic growth.

China has the world’s second-largest military budget, but lags well behind the United States, its primary strategic rival.

Despite this, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) surpasses the US military by number of personnel.

Beijing’s 1.78-trillion-yuan ($245.7-billion) defence budget for this year is still less than a third of Washington’s.

China’s military spending last year made up 1.6 percent of its GDP, far less than the United States or Russia, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

But its defence expansion is viewed with suspicion by Washington, as well as other powers in the region including Japan, with which Beijing has a territorial dispute over islands in the East China Sea…”