China said yesterday its proposed military spending for this year would be 247.7 billion yuan (US$29.8 billion) as delegates to the legislature's annual session prepared to approve an anti-secession bill.
The national defense budget for the year 2004 was 211.701 billion yuan.
China has been spending billions of dollars on modernizing the 2.5 million-member People's Liberation Army.
No details have been released about the anti-secession law.
A spokesman for the Chinese legislature, the National People's Congress, said: "This law is not at all a law on the use of force against Taiwan, let alone a war mobilization order."
"On the contrary, this is a law which will promote the development of cross-strait relations and promote peaceful reunification," Jiang Enzhu, an NPC spokesman said at a news conference, where he announced details of the proposed military budget for 2005.
The law will reaffirm the Chinese government's adherence to the basic principle of peaceful reunification and "one country, two systems," he said.
"The law will manifest the common will of the entire Chinese people to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as their zero tolerance toward any attempt by the 'Taiwan independence' secessionist forces to make Taiwan secede from China under any name and by any means," he said.
The NPC, meeting annually to approve legislation and affirm the government's work, will open its 10-day session today.
Jiang said the budgeted money for national defense will help pay for added training and more modern weapons.
The PLA also needs to budget more for pensions as it carries out plans to cut 200,000 troops from its ranks in a campaign to create a smaller, more technologically sophisticated force, he said.
The NPC spokesman insisted that China's military spending was still "very low" as a percentage of the country's economy.
"China's national defense budget is at a relatively low level, compared with the defense budgets of other major countries, in terms of its proportion to China's total financial expenditures and gross national product," he said.
In comparison, the United States announced a 2005 defense budget of about US$422 billion, nearly half of the world's total military spending estimated for the year. Japan, meanwhile, approved in December military spending of US$46.9 billion for this year.
Also on the agenda for this year's session:
?Premier Wen Jiabao is to lay out government goals for 2005 today, while finance officials announce the national budget.
?Finance, court and other officials are to announce economic development and other plans.
?Delegates are to discuss measures to fight corruption, improve life in China's poor countryside and protect an environment ravaged by population pressure and economic growth.
?Former President Jiang Zemin is expected to step down from his last official post as chairman of the government's Central Military Commission, completing a long-planned retirement.
Jiang, 78, asked to resign in a letter read yesterday to a presidium meeting of the NPC.
The presidium adopted a draft resolution to accept Jiang's request, and decided to submit the resolution for deliberation at the upcoming session of the NPC.
Jiang resigned from the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China last September and was succeeded by President Hu Jintao.
The legislative session will elect a new chairman of the State Central Military Commission, according to an agenda adopted at a preparatory meeting yesterday.
Hu, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, is expected to succeed Jiang as chairman of the State Central Military Commission.
Jiang became chairman of the CMC of the CPC in November 1989 and chairman of the State CMC in 1990.
In 2002, Hu succeeded Jiang as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. Hu became China's president in 2003.
Also yesterday, the preparatory NPC conference elected a 173-member presidium and a secretary general for the coming session, which will be attended by approximately 3,000 delegates from across the country.