Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
I think the assumption that US spending efficiency is somehow lower is unfair. We truly do not know this for sure and you can bet it varies depending on platforms and procurement sizes. US would seem to be more accountable and arguably more transparent, at least on paper it is. PRC corruption isn't entirely inexistent either so military matters could have similar problems with corruption, nepotism, and inefficiencies.
Let's say the assumptions are true. Chinese companies making smaller margins on military programs may actually be a "bad" thing for China. I personally have a love hate feeling towards military stuff. In an ideal world, none of these efforts and technologies should be necessary or celebrated. But we don't live there for various reasons so here we all are. As much as it makes good moral sense to not create a MIC that ends up becoming a cancer in how a nation is run, giving small incentives for great talents working in a more "well regulated" MIC will mean lower productivity and less impressive results. We should give the US the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their military industry. To assume they are bloated, over-charging, and incompetent is dangerously arrogant (I know this is NOT what you are claiming at all but maybe some may read into this whole thing like it is). To match the technologies and overall military capabilities of the US, China needs to provide healthy incentives for its own domestic producers. So I would hope that these thin margins for Chinese military industry is not true. What could be good would be tapping into the vast labour forces and talents available in China and using it to increase competition with enormous rewards for expected results.
I think your biases and prejudice clouded your judgement. Wasteful defense spending is widely publized for evey one to see . Even OMB cite numerous cases of wasteful spending
The problem is the powerfull lobby of military industrial complex and pork barrel policy Where the state and local government vying for the military work to be done in their state or congresional district Resulting in bias for ever increasing defense spending
Even Eisenhower warn against the corrosive aspect of MIC,
There is effort to reform the system but with the defense lobby so deeply entreched in belt way politic I think it is hard to reform
Most of Chinese defense industry are SOE and their primary motive is not profit though now they also invite private industry to get involve in defense industry but the leading company still SOE
There is no defense lobby in China as China is not democratic country
So I would say the difference is structural and not individual corruption
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