

BEIJING—China's new leader, Xi Jinping, appears to be ingratiating himself with the country's generals by protecting the defense budget even as economic growth slows. He also is cultivating a public image as a strong military leader as China faces off with Japan over a group of disputed islands and seeks to counteract the U.S. strategic pivot toward Asia.

A national budget unveiled Tuesday at the opening of an annual meeting of the National People's Congress, China's parliament, forecast military expenditure of 720.2 billion yuan ($114.3 billion), an increase of 10.7%, in 2013.

It is the first budget since Mr. Xi took over as Communist Party and military chief in a once-a-decade leadership change in November.

Military spending has increased at a similar rate for most of the past two decades, but this year's increase comes as China's overall economic growth begins to slow, with parliament approving an official GDP growth target of 7.5% for the second year running, compared with an average growth of more than 10% for most of the past decade.

New recruits of the Chinese navy march in Qingdao. Xi Jinping boosted China's military spending by 10.7%. Reuters

Diplomats and analysts say Mr. Xi has moved faster than expected to establish himself as a strong military leader, making a series of high-profile visits to army, navy, air force and missile-command facilities in his first 100 days in office, and launching a campaign to enhance the armed forces' ability to "fight and win wars," according to diplomats and analysts.

Those people also say Mr. Xi has taken direct control of an interagency body that has overseen an escalation in Chinese civilian and military patrols around islands claimed by both China and Japan, leading to frequent confrontations with Japanese ships and planes that many regional defense experts say could escalate into military conflict.

Mr. Xi's more dynamic military profile is mainly designed to build up a political support base within the armed forces, and cultivate a public image that distinguishes him from his predecessor, Hu Jintao, who struggled to establish his authority over the armed forces and was widely viewed as a weak and uncharismatic leader, say diplomats and analysts.

A Look Inside the Meetings

A hostess arranged the delegates' chairs before the opening session. Andy Wong/Associated Press

But the U.S. and other foreign governments are watching for indications that Mr. Xi's apparently closer ties with the military might result in a continuation, or even an escalation, of China's recent assertive behavior, especially in relation to the country's territorial disputes in the East China Sea and South China Sea.

That assertiveness, combined with China's rapid development of military capabilities designed to deny U.S. forces access to waters near its shores, was among the factors behind the Obama administration's decision last year to bolster defense and trade ties in Asia. China has denounced that as a ploy to contain its economic and military rise.

The official military spending for 2012 was around $106 billion, which was an 11.2% rise from 2011.

China says its defense budget is expanding in line with its economic growth, but isn't directed at any other country, and remains far behind U.S. military spending. The figure is usually unveiled at a news conference the day before the parliament session begins, but Fu Ying, a vice foreign minister who is spokeswoman for the parliament session, declined to reveal the number on Monday.

"It seems China needs to explain every year to the outside world why we are strengthening national defense and why we are increasing military spending," she said. "If a large country like China cannot protect its own security, that won't be good news for the world," she said. "Strengthening China's defense capability will be conducive to further stability in the region and will be conducive to world peace."

Experts on the Chinese military have long argued that China's real defense budget is much higher than the official figure, which doesn't include big-ticket items such as arms imports, indigenous weapons development, and military components of the space program.

Last year, the Pentagon estimated China's actual military spending in 2011 at between $120 billion and $180 billion.

However, an article by two Western scholars to be included in this month's China Quarterly academic journal argues that China's official military budget increasingly reflects actual spending, and also includes some items—such as disaster-relief operations—that aren't usually calculated as part of Western defense budgets.

"Increases in the official defense budget are roughly consistent with GDP growth and constitute a declining percentage of central government expenditures," wrote Adam Liff, a doctoral candidate at Princeton University, and Andrew Erickson, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

"This suggests that, generally speaking, investment in military modernization—aside from specific capabilities considered exigent for party leadership continuity, national survival and defense of critical national interests—remains a lower priority overall than economic development for Beijing's leadership," they wrote.

Experts on China's military also say that generals have been lobbying for larger increases in real military spending to help fund the development of costly weapons systems including aircraft carriers, the first of which was launched last year, and stealth fighters, a prototype of which made its first test flight in 2011.

Write to Jeremy Page at