China's Defense Spending Thread

[Klon]

I'd say the Chinese government and military knows their needs and gaps far better than any of us here, and since they have decided to keep military expenditure at 2%, that pretty much answers your question.

In addition to my previous comment:
All signs point to expanding numbers of higher tech weapons for the Chinese military (no need to list everything again). It remains to be seen how much it will cost. I don't see a reason to settle for 40% or 70% or 100% of American numbers/capability if they can afford more.

 

[solarz]

In addition to my previous comment:
All signs point to expanding numbers of higher tech weapons for the Chinese military (no need to list everything again). It remains to be seen how much it will cost. I don't see a reason to settle for 40% or 70% or 100% of American numbers/capability if they can afford more.

You're going about this the wrong way. You're looking at China's expenditure and comparing it to the American expenditure, and concluding that China needs to spend more because it's not spending as much as the US.

That's like going out to buy a ferrarri just because your neighbor has one.

First of all, what makes you think China *can* afford it? There are still hundreds of millions of people living in poverty in China, and improving their living standards is the government's top priority right now, not buying shiny new toys. National security is important of course, but security is not served by blindly throwing money at the military!

Second, the Chinese military does not have the same goals and missions as the American military. The American military is built to achieve global dominance. The Chinese military is built to achieve national security. Two entirely different missions with entirely different scopes. Each nation's military expenditure reflects the scope of that mission.

Chairman Mao once said: "political power comes from the barrel of a gun", so the CCP knows exactly how important a strong military is. They know much better than us how much money should be allocated to the military.

 

[PiSigma]

I wasn't saying China should follow the USA in opening overseas bases (better to work on removing them from the region).

What I've been trying to say is that military spending is not something that exists in a vacuum; instead, it's arrived at by looking at the threats a country is facing. As an example: how many fifth-generation fighters should China acquire over the next 20 years? 25, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 or 12800? I'd say the answer is between 1600 and 3200 (very broadly). Why would most people say anything below 800 is too low, when the number will be 0 for Vietnam and Myanmar, under 50 for S. Korea, 100 for Australia and so on? Why can't China be happy with 100 J-20s? Because the USA will be getting 2500 F-35s which will, along with a lot of other stuff, represent a serious threat to Chinese security. If these planes can be matched by a much smaller number of Chinese planes, that's great. If it can all be done with 2% of GDP, even better. If that's not possible, here's where a ramp up in spending comes in.

And how many f35 are in the theatres China is interested in? Just the ones on carriers and Japan. So don't need 2000 j20s. Also new tech comes out all the time, 611 has been working on next gen fighter research for a couple of years now, no need to see j20 as the end all plane.

 

[taxiya]

@Klon
Military spending is totally different than any other spending. There should be no comparison between them.
Other spending fills people's belly, warms the body or entertains the minds. All have their usefulness.
Military spending is only useful when weapons are used in a war. Otherwise, they will just rust and waste.

Therefor, other spending is the more the better, within the income cap and balance of course. Military spending should be kept to the minimum to necessity.

The necessity is judged by the mission (defensive or dominance and aggressive). The outcome of that calculation is very different, China vs. U.S.

The "why not spending as much as somebody else" is never a relevant or reasonable question. Only "why so much" is a proper question to be asked because of the difference I talked above.

Besides, we should always remind ourselves NOT to compete with whoever. Walk our own way, do our own thing. Constant and instinct competing with others is a trap of mind, and will lead the lose of one's self.

 

[Klon]

My last comment on this, since it would be a bit much to respond to everyone individually.
When writing my post, I didn't expect that people on a military forum would be opposed to an increase in spending and wouldn't even see a reason to do it. Thus my post wasn't about the reasons, but about providing numbers because '15 years of 10% growth' doesn't say much for most people, except that it seems like a lot.

Because I didn't do it earlier, here's what you get with military spending increasing at the same rate as the GDP (which again we'll assume is 6% for 15 years). Everything in USD.
If it's 150 billion, 1.4% of GDP now, it's 360 billion, 1.4% of GDP in 2032, with total spending in that time 3.6 trillion.
If it's 215 billion, 1.9% of GDP now, it's 515 billion, 1.9% of GDP in 2032, with total spending in that time 5.2 trillion.

I'd like to reiterate that my proposals aren't anything extreme. The final numbers for military spending as share of GDP were 2.4%, 3%, 3.5%. Even the highest case is only marginally above the present American value.

You're going about this the wrong way. You're looking at China's expenditure and comparing it to the American expenditure, and concluding that China needs to spend more because it's not spending as much as the US.

That's like going out to buy a ferrarri just because your neighbor has one.

It's more accurate if you switch Ferrari for a gun.

First of all, what makes you think China *can* afford it? There are still hundreds of millions of people living in poverty in China, and improving their living standards is the government's top priority right now, not buying shiny new toys. National security is important of course, but security is not served by blindly throwing money at the military!

China has a

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of eliminating poverty by 2020 (presumably absolute poverty, you can always have as much relative poverty as you want). Even if they don't succeed totally by 2020, in 15 years China will be closer to a developed country than a low income one.
The other way at looking at the difference between 2% and 3% (or 1.4% and 3.5%) is that the shares of GDP that stay untouched are 98% and 97%, respectively, clearly a small difference. The poor in China will stop being poor with a few more years/decades of fast growth. Additional government measures can make a small impact on top, but the major contribution is a growing economy. Otherwise, they should have simply eliminated poverty decades ago.
I've pointed out that higher military spending doesn't impede growth and development (take a look at the examples and note that they were much higher than just 3% for most of the time; additionally, the first year that France and the UK went under 3% was 1995).

Second, the Chinese military does not have the same goals and missions as the American military. The American military is built to achieve global dominance. The Chinese military is built to achieve national security. Two entirely different missions with entirely different scopes. Each nation's military expenditure reflects the scope of that mission.

The "why not spending as much as somebody else" is never a relevant or reasonable question. Only "why so much" is a proper question to be asked because of the difference I talked above.

Several people made this point. However, military needs are decided by looking at possible threats and this directly necessitates comparisons with other countries.

And how many f35 are in the theatres China is interested in?

In a war, it can be all of them.

Summary of my thoughts
In the next 15 years, China will almost certainly have a larger economy than the USA. As the numbers show, 15 years of 10% growth of military spending is realistic. Specifically, if the current official figure of 1.4% is accurate, the final number is 2.4%, probably unobjectionable even for most in this thread.
China is modernizing and expanding its military (carriers, 055, 052D, 054, 095, 096, J-20, H-20, Y-20, Z-20, carrier aviation and so on). New systems are generally more expensive than old ones and they will be getting more of them, along with the costs of use and maintenance. Because it is financially possible, they should, in my opinion, target at least numerical parity with the USA. I won't go into the reasons here.
Like I wrote in the first post, I hope there's an increase in military R&D spending and number of researchers, as this is the foundation of military development (while admitting that I don't know the current numbers). I think there's also room for further large cuts to the number of soldiers.

 

[PiSigma]

My last comment on this, since it would be a bit much to respond to everyone individually.
When writing my post, I didn't expect that people on a military forum would be opposed to an increase in spending and wouldn't even see a reason to do it. Thus my post wasn't about the reasons, but about providing numbers because '15 years of 10% growth' doesn't say much for most people, except that it seems like a lot.

Because I didn't do it earlier, here's what you get with military spending increasing at the same rate as the GDP (which again we'll assume is 6% for 15 years). Everything in USD.
If it's 150 billion, 1.4% of GDP now, it's 360 billion, 1.4% of GDP in 2032, with total spending in that time 3.6 trillion.
If it's 215 billion, 1.9% of GDP now, it's 515 billion, 1.9% of GDP in 2032, with total spending in that time 5.2 trillion.

I'd like to reiterate that my proposals aren't anything extreme. The final numbers for military spending as share of GDP were 2.4%, 3%, 3.5%. Even the highest case is only marginally above the present American value.

It's more accurate if you switch Ferrari for a gun.

China has a

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

of eliminating poverty by 2020 (presumably absolute poverty, you can always have as much relative poverty as you want). Even if they don't succeed totally by 2020, in 15 years China will be closer to a developed country than a low income one.
The other way at looking at the difference between 2% and 3% (or 1.4% and 3.5%) is that the shares of GDP that stay untouched are 98% and 97%, respectively, clearly a small difference. The poor in China will stop being poor with a few more years/decades of fast growth. Additional government measures can make a small impact on top, but the major contribution is a growing economy. Otherwise, they should have simply eliminated poverty decades ago.
I've pointed out that higher military spending doesn't impede growth and development (take a look at the examples and note that they were much higher than just 3% for most of the time; additionally, the first year that France and the UK went under 3% was 1995).


Several people made this point. However, military needs are decided by looking at possible threats and this directly necessitates comparisons with other countries.

In a war, it can be all of them.

Summary of my thoughts
In the next 15 years, China will almost certainly have a larger economy than the USA. As the numbers show, 15 years of 10% growth of military spending is realistic. Specifically, if the current official figure of 1.4% is accurate, the final number is 2.4%, probably unobjectionable even for most in this thread.
China is modernizing and expanding its military (carriers, 055, 052D, 054, 095, 096, J-20, H-20, Y-20, Z-20, carrier aviation and so on). New systems are generally more expensive than old ones and they will be getting more of them, along with the costs of use and maintenance. Because it is financially possible, they should, in my opinion, target at least numerical parity with the USA. I won't go into the reasons here.
Like I wrote in the first post, I hope there's an increase in military R&D spending and number of researchers, as this is the foundation of military development (while admitting that I don't know the current numbers). I think there's also room for further large cuts to the number of soldiers.

I don't think you understand how federal budget works. The 3.5% GDP spend on military represent over 50% of federal budget in the USA. It is NOT 3.5% of budget. If the USA just drop the 3.5% to a 2%, health care, education and infrastructure spending can literally double up.

%gdp and %federal budget ate two different things. NK spends 10% GDP on military, which is 80% of federal budget, that's why they got no money to do anything. China's 2% military budget already is a significant portion of federal budget, they don't want to bankrupt themselves like the soviets.

From your last post comparing 97% to 98% left for other things it shows you clearly do not understand the difference between military budget as a percent to government spending and GDP. You can't have 100% tax! Easy way to calculate is to find the average federal tax rate for country, say 10%. Which would give ur 10% GDP as federal budget. Then 2% GDP for military would mean 20% of ur tax base is used for military already.

 

[antiterror13]

The US is not exactly the gold standard for everything. In my opinion, every country should try to emulate the Scandinavian countries. Good social care from government due to money saved from not spending on military.

true ... and also don't forget New Zealand as well ... where the govt really looking after the people .. free health care, free education and high economic growth with very low unemployment rate

 

[Lethe]

Ultimately, I expect China will be compelled to spend around as much as the USA does on its military capabilities. That is because its primary strategic threat for the foreseeable future will remain the United States, but there will be many other potential threats to be deterred and contingencies to be prepared for also: India, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, the Koreas, etc. China will, in the long-term, be capable of offsetting these assorted threats, and so will be compelled to do so.

 

[Klon]

I don't think you understand how federal budget works. The 3.5% GDP spend on military represent over 50% of federal budget in the USA. It is NOT 3.5% of budget. If the USA just drop the 3.5% to a 2%, health care, education and infrastructure spending can literally double up.

%gdp and %federal budget ate two different things. NK spends 10% GDP on military, which is 80% of federal budget, that's why they got no money to do anything. China's 2% military budget already is a significant portion of federal budget, they don't want to bankrupt themselves like the soviets.

From your last post comparing 97% to 98% left for other things it shows you clearly do not understand the difference between military budget as a percent to government spending and GDP. You can't have 100% tax! Easy way to calculate is to find the average federal tax rate for country, say 10%. Which would give ur 10% GDP as federal budget. Then 2% GDP for military would mean 20% of ur tax base is used for military already.

I think my understanding is just fine. Wikipedia has an

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about the US federal budget, which provides a nice

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for 2016. We can learn from there that defense represents half of discretionary spending and about 15% of the federal budget. Education is largely not federally funded. Allegedly spending 10% of GDP on the military is not among North Korea's top 20 problems. And so on.

 

[Klon]

Ultimately, I expect China will be compelled to spend around as much as the USA does on its military capabilities. That is because its primary strategic threat for the foreseeable future will remain the United States, but there will be many other potential threats to be deterred and contingencies to be prepared for also: India, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, the Koreas, etc. China will, in the long-term, be capable of offsetting these assorted threats, and so will be compelled to do so.

So, how does 15 years at 10% sound?