{"id":55499,"date":"2015-03-16T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T12:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=55499"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:25:58","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:25:58","slug":"chinas-defense-spending-facts-vs-hyperbole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/03\/chinas-defense-spending-facts-vs-hyperbole\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Defense Spending: Facts vs Hyperbole"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 Mar 2015 – <\/em>China will raise its defense budget by around 10 percent this year, compared with last year\u2019s 12.2 percent, according to spokeswoman Fu Ying at the press conference for the annual session of the country\u2019s top legislature on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

No wonder this military budget for this year has not unexpectedly been portrayed as evidence of the \u201cChina threat\u201d. Whenever it is announced, the size, growth rate compared with the previous year, as well as its transparency are always held up as proof that China is \u201caggressively building up its military muscle\u201d.<\/p>\n

Compared with previous years, this year\u2019s military budget has attracted special attention because of the hunt for \u201ctigers\u201d, high-ranking corrupt elements, and \u201cflies\u201d, lower-ranking ones, within the military. A big \u201ctiger\u201d, Xu Caihou, the former deputy chief of the Central Military Commission, was netted at the end of last year, and it was announced in January that another 16 senior military officers were under investigation. This was followed on Monday by the announcement that a further 14 senior officers are being investigated, including Guo Zhenggang, the former deputy political commissar of the military command of Zhejiang province, who was promoted to major general in January.<\/p>\n

\"File<\/a>

File Photo: People\u2019s Liberation Army soldiers accept caskets containing the remains of 437 Chinese soldiers killed in the Korean war [Xinhua]<\/p><\/div>Corruption has not only eroded many military officers\u2019 will, it has also weakened the fighting capability of the People\u2019s Liberation Army, and even abused the spending on military modernization \u2013 the case of Xu Caihou, who was revealed to have stored over a ton of banknotes in a bullet-proof room, is a big lesson that the Chinese military should bear in mind. Only with a powerful anti-corruption campaign can China\u2019s military spending serve its purpose.<\/p>\n

But as well as hunting the tigers and flies hidden in various ranks of the military, the military budget also needs to be more strictly supervised by the military auditing authorities. It\u2019s true that some of the spending is hard to reveal because of military secrets, but that spending should be made as transparent as possible within the military. Non-sensitive spending should be made public as the military budget comes from taxpayers and they have the right to know every cent is being used to better defend them.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, some Western media outlets have once again sensationalized China\u2019s military spending as a threat, by focusing on its double-digit growth.<\/p>\n

But such speculation is absurd. The size and growth rate of a country\u2019s military budget, are only two of the main indexes for judging whether its military spending is reasonable, with two others being the military budget per capita and the percentage of GDP spent on the military.<\/p>\n

If China\u2019s military budget is about $142 billion this year, it is still about $61,800 per capita, and the US defense budget for Fiscal Year of 2015 is about $600 billion for its 1.44 million military personnel, or $416,666 per capita; Japan spent 4.98 trillion yen ($41.5 billion) for the 247,000 personnel in its self-defense forces, or $168,016 per capita. So China\u2019s per capita spending on its armed forces is much smaller than that of the US or Japan.<\/p>\n

As to the second index, according to data from the Stockholm Peace Research Center, China\u2019s military budget accounts for 1.5 percent of GDP, while the world average is about 2.6 percent and that of US is 4.3 percent; even that of Japan has reached 1 percent, the upper limit set by its peaceful Constitution.<\/p>\n

In fact, to narrow the military gap with Western developed powers and better defend its growing interests globally, China needs to raise its military budget annually; and the growth rate should be greater than that of the West or the gaps will widen.<\/p>\n

It has been predicted that China\u2019s GDP could reach $21 trillion in 2019, surpassing the $20 trillion of US. If their military budget percentages remain at current level, China\u2019s military budget would still be less than half that of US. There is really no need to worry about China having military superiority.<\/p>\n

___________________________<\/p>\n

\u00a0Xu Guangyu is a retired major general and senior advisor to the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association. He has been with China’s People’s Liberation Army since the age of 16.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was first published in China Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 thebricspost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China\u2019s military budget is $142 billion this year, $ 61,800 per capita. The US defense budget is $ 600 billion for its 1.44 million military personnel or $ 416,666 per capita. Japan spent $ 41.5 billion for the 247,000 personnel in its self-defense forces, or $168,016 per capita. So China\u2019s per capita spending on its armed forces is much smaller than both the US and Japan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}