China spends 1.4% of GDP on defense

China's defense expenditures account for only about 1.4 percent of its GDP and China's military development is modest, said Geng Yansheng, spokesman of China's Ministry of National Defense.

Geng said that China's military development is always adhering to a strategy of coordinated development of national defense and economic construction. China's investment in national defense has always maintained a reasonable and appropriate scale.

Compared to China's military expenditure, the world's major countries' defense spending is higher and on average accounts for between 2 percent and 4 percent of their GDP, Geng said.

By Zhao Chenyan, People's Daily Online