Analyzing China's defense budget ANI | Updated: Feb 02, 2021 09:42 IST Hong Kong, February 2 (ANI): Early March, during the annual National People's Congress (NPC), is when China typically announces its defense budget for the coming year. As that time approaches for 2021, it is useful to analyze how well the official figures actually reflect reality, or whether they are deliberately deflated to hide the true extent of Chinese spending on its military. It is important because China is the second-highest defense spender in the world behind the USA, plus its expenditure is almost 3.5 times that of third-placed India. Last year's defense budget was delayed till late May because of COVID-19. In 2020 the publicized budget rose 6.6 percent to CNY 1.27 trillion (USD 179 billion), compared to the year before, "to step up preparations for armed combat," according to Chairman Xi Jinping. To put this in perspective, that annual increase of CNY 78 billion was almost identical to the complete defense budget of Taiwan for the same year.