China's development based on peace, poses no threat to others, spokesman says

China will continue to uphold peaceful development and will not threaten other nations with its military prowess, a spokesman said on Sunday.

"If we take a look at the share of China’s defense budget in our GDP, national fiscal spending, or in per capita terms, we can see that China’s defense input is actually still lower than that of major countries,” Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the first session of the 13th National People’s Congress, told reporters at a news conference.

"China is committed to a path of peaceful development, and pursues a defense policy that is defensive in nature. Our development will not pose a threat to other nations,” he said.

Zhang made the remarks in response to questions from Reuters on China’s defense budget for the fiscal year of 2018 and China’s “considerations” behind the planned budget.

Zhang said that a country’s national defense needs to be developed in step with its economy and serve the national security and development interests.

"In recent years, China has increased input in its defense by a moderate margin and a large part of these raises have been used to make up for past shortfalls in defense expenditure,” he said.

The increased investment would be spent on upgrading weapons and equipment, improving military personnel’s welfare and boosting training and living conditions for troops, Zhang said.

In the fiscal year of 2017, the defense budget was decided at 1.04 trillion yuan, or $151 billion based on the exchange rate in March 2017, a year-on-year increase of 7 percent. In the fiscal year of 2016, the budget was set at 954.3 billion yuan, a 7.6 percent rise compared with that of 2015.