By Dawn's Early Light: China Increases Military Spending 12.6%

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March 04, 2005

China Increases Military Spending 12.6%

The Washington Post writes up an AP story online about another double digit increase in Chinese military spending. The article puts Chinese military spending at $29.9 billion. Since the Chinese Army is very involved in business enterprises, similar to if the Pentagon ran General Motors, Chinese public military spending figures are often understated. Global Security estimated that China spent $65 billion on defense spending in 2002.

To help put this in perspective, here is military spending information that I put together for a larger post on "hard power":

Pacific          $ Bil % of US

China          65.0 13.9%

Japan          44.7 9.6%

South Korea          16.2 3.5%

Taiwan             8.0 1.7%

North Korea             5.1 1.1%

Australia             9.3 2.0%

Sub Total          148.3 31.8%

United States          466.0 100.0%

Even by the inflated $65 billion estimation in defense spending, it is only 14% of US defense spending (this includes US expenditures in Iraq). Japan and Taiwan combined spend over $52 billion in defense.

What is more worrisome in the article is China's proposed anti-secession bill. While the Chinese say "this law is not at all a law on the use of force against Taiwan, let alone a war mobilization order," they must be worried about the Fujian province declaring its separatist goals then; otherwise why would they be putting so many missiles near the Taiwanese Straits if not to attack Taiwan? This is an absurd communist statement that only those who have thrown away common sense could swallow.

The US should keep a watchful eye on China. It is all the more disturbing that the EU is set to lift the ban on military technology transfers and weapon sales to China. Taiwan can only hope that US resolve is a strong enough deterrent, since the EU apparently cares more about Chinese trade than freedom for the Taiwanese.

Posted by Bill Rice on March 04, 2005 at 03:38 PM in IR: China, IR: Taiwan | Permalink

Comments

"Even by the inflated $65 billion estimation in defense spending, it is only 14% of US defense spending"

You make no adjustments for purchasing power, and your figures are therefore a drastic understatement of just how much military force China's $65 billion actually buys. A single American GI's salary will pay for several PLA soldiers, each and every one of which is a human being roughly equivalent to himself.

Posted by: Abiola Lapite | March 07, 2005 at 05:59 AM

Abiola, I thank you first all for your comment, but I must disagree. The advancement of technology, and the US intergration of battle systems, increased armor protection that are yielding far less fatalities from casualties than from any other US war, communication and logistics systems are so superior to even our allies, let alone our adversaries that it is very challenging to compare one US soldier with one Chinese PLA soldier.

China has an a very large standing army, but it is difficult to compare to the US force structure and claim that it is superior. PPP is important for comparing figures across countries. However, Chinese defense spending Dollar for Dollar or Yuan to Yuan is still very much dwarfed by the US military spending.

Europe spends a good deal as well salary wise on their forces, but they lack many of the above items that the US has. In the case where a nation retains a large standing army that is not well equipped, it is actually worse off. The soldier's salary is a continual expense, thereby eating up a larger portion of the countries defense budget. The purchasing of sophisticated hardware, software, systems and weapons can serve the country for a longer period of time. China's large standing army is a drain on their defense spending, especially as incomes rise and the Chinese need to match competitive salaries. As the US demonstrated in Iraq and to a lesser degree Kosovo, a well equipped, highly trained, smaller force can overwhelm a significanlly numerically superior opponent with historically low casualties.

The US is in a far stronger position on all accounts.

Regards,

Bill

ps. I stopped by your blog, and really enjoyed it. Much to think about.

Posted by: Bill | March 07, 2005 at 09:19 AM

Posted by: aol | July 29, 2007 at 11:18 AM

Posted by: milfseeker | August 01, 2007 at 03:34 PM

Posted by: milfseeker | August 15, 2007 at 03:42 PM

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