China said Sunday it had increased its military budget for this year by another 17.8 per cent, following similar large increases in recent years.

The draft defence budget for 2007 is set at 350.92 billion yuan (44.94 billion dollars), up 52.99 billion yuan (6.79 billion dollars) from 2006, a spokesman for China's nominal parliament told reporters
This year's defence budget accounts for 7.5 per cent of total expenditure in China's draft budget, compared with 7.7 per cent in 2004, 7.3 percent in 2005 and 7.4 percent in 2006, said Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for the Fifth Session of the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC).

The 3,000-member NPC is scheduled to discuss and approve the national budget during its 10-day annual session, which begins on Monday.

Many Western critics claim China's real military spending is much higher than its budget figure, with some US analysts estimating actual military spending at up to three times the budget figure.

Jiang defended the regular increases in spending as necessary to keep up with rapid economic development by paying for higher salaries, rising oil prices and technological upgrades.

Part of the increased spending will be used to 'upgrade military equipment and improve the troops' capability of fighting a defensive war based on information technology', he said.

This year's increase is nearly 24 per cent higher than the figure announced at last year's NPC, apparently reflecting the fact that China's 2006 military spending exceeded the original budget.

Jiang said China's official military expenditure in 2005 was 1.35 per cent of its gross domestic product, considerably less than Western powers such as the United States, Britain and France.

Much of China's military hardware is deployed against Taiwan, the island that Beijing regards as a renegade province.

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian on Friday criticized China's missile deployments and 'very hostile posture toward Taiwan.'

'Instead of a peaceful emergence of China, as it claims, we see it as a military emergence of China,' Chen said in an exclusive interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, pointing out the 988 missiles China has deployed on its coast across from Taiwan.

An Anti-Secession Law passed by China in March 2005 laid 'a legal foundation for a future military invasion of Taiwan', he said.

On Saturday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi opposed US plans to sell Taiwan more than 400 missiles worth 421 million dollars.

At a meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte in Beijing, Yang urged the United States to 'stop selling weapons to Taiwan' in order to 'not to send any wrong signal to Taiwan independence forces,' state media said.