In 2019, China will lower its defense budget growth rate to 7.5 percent, from last year's 8.1 percent, according to a draft budget report submitted to the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC).

After double-digit growth for five consecutive years from 2011 to 2015, the defense budget's increases have slowed to single digit since 2016—with 7.6 percent in 2016, 7 percent in 2017, and 8.1 percent in 2018.

Xu Hui, Commandant of the International College of Defense Studies at PLA National Defense University saw this year's defense budget increase as “appropriate". He believed there were three factors behind the number: national security environment, financial support, and the country's defense policy. 

On Tuesday President Xi Jinping told national legislators from the People's Liberation Army and the People's Armed Police Force that this year is crucial to fulfilling the armed forces' 13th five-year development plan. He urged the military to focus on improving its combat readiness and capability. It should also deepen its reform, foster innovation and present new achievements for the coming 70th birthday of the People's Republic of China in October.

Commandant Xu said China is accelerating its national defense modernization in a bid to transform the PLA into a world-class military.

He pointed out that although China's defense modernization was proposed by late Premier Zhou Enlai in the 1970s, China's military hardware development has lagged over the past decades. The gap of lack of modernized weaponry should be filled, and at the same time talent cultivation needs to keep pace with the technology upgrade, he added.

Yang Xiyu, senior fellow of China Institute of International Studies agreed with Commandant Xu. He added that software is even harder than hardware development during China's military modernization. The software here means “modern military theories and strategies, and world-class human resources,” he said, “there's still a long way for PLA to build up modernization combined by hardware and software.”

Commandant Xu mentioned that PLA has fought no combat in more than three decades. "We have a saying that the more sweat you spend in training ground, the less blood you have to sacrifice in battlefield," Xu told CGTN. 

"It's a very unusual period in Chinese history, we cherish peace, but the more you expect for peace, the more readiness the troops should have. So the military should always remember your mission is to protect the country, the better you prepare yourself, the less possibilities you will (have to) engage in another bloody war,” Xu told CGTN.

One major concern regarding military relations between the two biggest economies, China and the U.S., Yang mentioned that the Taiwan issue is an obstacle. The U.S. intervention within the region turned to bring a potential military conflict, he warned. “PLA has to be ready for the worst scenario, based on the best preparation," he said.