Defense spending is one of the most direct ways of measuring a country’s potential military capability. Comparing defense spending between countries—whether nominally or as a percentage of government expenditure—is a useful gauge of relative military strength. Spending patterns can also reveal key political events that have implications for defense and national security.
Understanding the connection between China’s military spending and its military power is made difficult by a lack of transparency. Although Beijing provides figures for its defense spending each year, outside estimates of China’s defense budget are often significantly higher than the official numbers. China provides limited information on the distribution of its military spending, which further obscures spending patterns.
Defense Spending Giants
This interactive compares China’s defense spending with that of other key countries. Use the filtering options to select other measures of spending or to look at another country grouping. Data provided by the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database.
Filter by category:
Filter by grouping:
Filter by year:
Tracking Chinese Military Spending
There is no universally accepted standard for reporting military spending. While international mechanisms exist, such as the UN Report on Military Expenditures, participation is voluntary. This allows governments to report their expenditure with varying degrees of detail. China joined the UN instrument in 2007, but it remains less transparent than many countries.
The Chinese government announces defense expenditure information annually. In March 2026, China announced a yearly defense budget of RMB 1.91 trillion ($276.7 billion),1 marking a nominal 7 percent increase from the 2025 budget of 1.78 trillion ($244.8 billion).2 This continues a recent trend that has seen nominal yearly percentage increases in the upper single digits.
While China releases an official defense budget, how much China actually spends on its military is widely debated. For instance, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates the overall figure for 2025 at $335.5 billion, while the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) puts it at $341 billion. Both figures are considerably higher than that year’s official defense budget of approximately $246.5 billion.
Notwithstanding these differences, Beijing’s official figures may now more accurately represent defense expenditures than in the past. In 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) reported that China’s actual defense spending may have been upwards of four times larger than its officially announced budget. In 2025, the DoD noted that China’s real military spending may be 32 to 63 percent higher than stated in its official budget.
Varying levels of transparency from Beijing add challenges for outside efforts to estimate China’s defense budget. The publication of 11 defense white papers since 1995 has provided some insight into the nature of Chinese military spending but with varying degrees of specificity. White papers published between 1998 and 2008 included comparative budget breakdowns between China and countries like Japan and Russia. These comparisons were removed from white papers after 2008 but reappeared in the most recent white paper that was released in July 2019.
Most defense white papers—except those released in 2013 and 2015—also outline three spending categories: personnel, training and maintenance, and equipment.3 Beijing states that it annually reports categorized military spending information to the UN; however, this information is only available from the UN in short reports for fiscal years 2006, 2007, 2008, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2024.4 The reports from the mid-2000s show roughly equal spending between each of these three categories. The 2019 white paper, which includes spending breakdowns between 2010 and 2017, reveals a noticeable shift away from this even distribution, with equipment accounting for an increasingly larger share. The latest figures published by the UN showed equipment reaching 42.4 percent of total expenditure in 2024—the highest year on available record.
China’s lack of transparency leads to discrepancies between official figures and outside estimates. Official figures do not account for a number of military-related outlays, including some military research and development, aspects of China’s space program, defense mobilization funds, authorized sales of land or excess food produced by some units, recruitment bonuses for college students, and provincial military base operating costs.5
Official military spending also excludes spending on public security, which includes the People’s Armed Police (PAP). The PAP is a paramilitary police component of China’s armed forces that is charged with internal security, law enforcement, and maritime rights protection. The Central Military Commission maintains direct control of the PAP. The official budget at the central level for the PAP stood at RMB 178.8 billion ($25.1 billion) in 2025,6 though this figure is widely believed to significantly undercount total spending on the PAP.
China is not alone in excluding elements of defense-related spending from its official defense budget. India’s paramilitary forces, which make up the Central Armed Police Forces, fall under the Ministry of Home Affairs, not the Ministry of Defense. India is also not forthcoming about space and nuclear weapons expenditures. The United States funds its nuclear weapons through the Department of Energy and does not include these details in its defense budget. However, the U.S. government maintains a high level of budgetary transparency, which enables analysts to readily account for discrepancies.
Estimates of China’s military spending are further complicated by the reporting of costs not typically included in the defense budgets of many other countries. For instance, disaster relief in China is funded through the defense budget and is to be reimbursed by non-defense agencies. Likewise, perquisites for retired senior officers—including offices, assistants, and special access to hospital facilities—are all funded through China’s defense budget. In many other countries, these functions and associated costs are typically incurred by nonmilitary organizations.
The inconsistencies in estimates are compounded by a lack of pricing information. Beijing does not release detailed cost data for military goods and services, making it difficult to make calculations based on purchasing power parity (PPP). Some of the chief challenges are uncertainties over which goods to place in China’s defense spending basket and which goods to compare between China and other countries. A 2024 study by M. Taylor Fravel, George J. Gilboy, and Eric Heginbotham sought to add clarity to this issue. Using sector-specific PPP rates, the study concluded that China’s 2024 defense spending is likely around $471 billion, which is about 1.4 times the level at market exchange rates.
Chinese Military Spending in a Global Context
In constant terms (accounting for inflation), China’s defense spending has grown nearly five-fold over the past two decades, jumping from $86 billion in 2006 to $335 billion in 2025.7 This has coincided with decades of modernization efforts. China began military modernization in earnest after the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, which exposed fundamental weaknesses in the ability of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to deter foreign intervention in sovereignty disputes. China’s defense investments have corresponded with several high-profile procurement programs, military organizational reforms, and doctrinal and strategic shifts within the PLA.
These shifts have had a dramatic impact on the balance of military power globally, but especially within China’s neighborhood. In 2000, China was the second-largest defense spender in the Indo-Pacific, behind Japan. As of 2025, China spent more on defense than the next 22 Indo-Pacific countries combined.
China has leveraged its growing military power to play a much more assertive role in the Indo-Pacific region. In 2025, the PLA conducted a record-breaking level of air and maritime activity around Taiwan, sustaining the higher operational tempo of PLA activities that began following William Lai’s inauguration as Taiwan’s president in May 2024. China has also ramped up military activities in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and farther afield as it has sought to pressure U.S. allies like the Philippines, Japan, and Australia.
China’s growing military power has contributed to growing defense investments by the United States and its allies and partners. The United States is slated to spend nearly $1.09 trillion on defense and related outlays in fiscal year (FY) 2026, and spending could surge higher in the coming years. President Donald Trump’s administration has requested a record $1.54 trillion in defense spending for FY2027, but that level of funding has not yet been appropriated.
The Trump administration has also repeatedly called for U.S. allies and partners to boost defense spending. Washington urged Taiwan to boost its military spending to 10 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in the face of mounting pressure from China. In response, Taiwan has committed to spending 5 percent on GDP by 2030, and the Lai administration proposed its highest-ever defense budget at over $35 billion for 2027, but defense spending remains a contentious political issue within Taiwan. The Trump administration has likewise called for Japan to increase spending to 3.5 percent of its GDP. Under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s Ministry of Defense is seeking a record defense budget of ¥8.9 trillion (about $56 billion) for FY2027.
When examining China’s defense expenditure as a share of its GDP, it has hovered at or below 2 percent for more than two decades. In comparison, U.S. military spending has averaged about 3.8 percent of GDP since 2000. Japan’s military spending remained set at approximately 1 percent of its GDP before 2023 but has risen since. In 2025, Japan’s defense spending reached 1.4 percent of GDP, and it is slated to grow higher in the coming years.
Measuring defense spending as a percentage of government expenditure provides additional insight. The United States saw a marked increase in defense spending as a percentage of total government expenditure during its conflicts in the Middle East. U.S. military spending has since decreased and returned to pre-September 11 levels (9.6 percent in 2001 and 8.3 percent in 2025).
Russia’s military spending has likewise fluctuated with its military interventions. Russian defense spending jumped to 14.8 percent of government spending in 2016 amid its invasion of Ukraine. It then fell back to around 10 percent before climbing sharply amid its full-scale invasion of Ukraine beginning in 2022. In 2025, Russia allocated nearly a fifth of its government funds to military purposes.
In comparison, Chinese military spending has shrunk considerably as a percent of total government spending. This trend has reversed slightly in recent years. In 2021, China’s military spending as a share of government expenditure saw its first year-over-year uptick in two decades. In 2023, it saw yet another increase, from 4.9 percent to 5 percent. As of 2025, China’s military spending accounted for 5.1 percent of its government expenditure. 