Military spending up despite 'crisis'

Beijing - China's military spending is not high compared with the world average and lags far behind the United States, analysts say.

World military spending almost doubled in the past decade to $1.53 trillion in 2009, despite the global financial crisis, a Swedish think-tank said on Wednesday.

In its 2010 yearbook, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said that global military spending last year rose 5.9 percent in real terms compared to 2008. The US accounted for more than half of that increase.