China's Military Budget Keeps Growing: Why the World Should Worry China’s massive military budget demonstrates the central place that China’s armed forces hold in implementing (or influencing) the country’s foreign policy. Beijing’s rising defense budget has long been a critical indicator of the nation’s economic growth and perceived security threats, offering crucial insight into the authoritarian regime’s not-so-transparent plans. It offers the international community crucial insight into an otherwise non-transparent authoritarian regime that is increasingly at odds with the West and major powers in the Indo-Pacific. On the inaugural day of the annual parliamentary meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC), Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced that China has increased its defense budget for 2021 by 6.8 percent to 1.35 trillion yuan (USD 209 billion). Although this increase follows Beijing’s trend of single-digit year-on-year growth, it comes despite the economic dip that China has witnessed amid the pandemic. What is the significance of Beijing’s budgeted military spending for the coming year, particularly in the backdrop of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) forthcoming centennial anniversary?