From the AP:
China has become the world’s second biggest military spender behind the United States, a Swedish peace research group said Monday.
Global arms spending rose 4 percent last year, but China increased its spending by 10 percent to an estimated $84.9 billion last year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in its annual report on world arms transfers.
“China is continuing to acquire both domestic and foreign arms as it seeks to equip its armed forces for conditions of modern ‘informationalized’ warfare,” it said. Such warfare involves the use of precision weapons and high-tech information and communications technology.
“They are the second biggest military spender now, that does not mean they are the second strongest military power, because a lot of other countries have been at this game for a lot longer than China,” Perlo-Freeman said.
