Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make an estimate of Chinese defence expenditure on a Purchasing Power Parity basis; and if he will make a statement.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) annually publishes estimates of defence spending by the Top 15 World-wide military spenders. The MOD's Annual Statistical Series 1 Finance Bulletin 1.02 on International Defence published on 14 August 2014, (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/international-defence-expenditure-2014--2) estimates China's Defence Expenditure in 2013 to be US$275 billion based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) rates. This estimate is calculated from defence expenditure data published by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) data and PPP rates published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

On 8 October 2015 the MOD will publish updated estimates covering 2014, which will be based on the latest available SIPRI data.