China's defense budget growth slows (3)

Since 2008, China has sent 12 groups of naval task forces to conduct escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia.

Chen added that China now faces a more arduous task in national security as a significant change has taken place in the international strategic situation and the balance of power in recent years, and pressure is mounting on China's peripheral security environment.

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, said China's defense spending levels "are not unusual for a re-emerging great power" and they remain far below US military spending levels.

In recent years, China's military spending amounted to about 1.6 percent of its GDP. The ratio was less than that of the US, which stood at 4.7 percent, according to a Cato Institute report in 2012.

Zhang Yunbi and Xinhua contributed to this story.

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