China's Defense Spending Thread

[antiterror13]

Just a quick point that using GDP to measure the importance of military spending is a bit misleading. It is far more useful to measure it as a percentage of government spending (and that spending against revenues). The measure of a low tax/high tax economy and the military spending compared to other public spending commitments is far more revealing as to the level of militarisation in a society.

Thats actually a very very good point. The US govt revenue is ~3T or the ratio of defense spending and Govt revenue is well over 20%, while for China (revenue $2.1T) only 6%.

India (Revenue $240B) : over 20%
etc etc

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[Geographer]

thats actually a very very good point. The US govt revenue is ~3T or the ratio of defense spending and Govt revenue is well over 20%, while for China (revenue $2.1T) only 6%.

That's central government spending. Some countries have stronger central governments than others, and thus their central government spending as a % of GDP is higher than others with equal government services. In the United States, for example, nearly all education spending occurs at the state and local level, while other countries include spending in their central government budget.

Since the U.S. central government (aka Federal government) is not responsible for education which is a large budget item in most countries, it's expected that U.S. military spending is a larger share of the central government budget than in most countries. How is education spending distributed among the various levels of China's government?

 

[antiterror13]

Even if you add all state budget (~$6T) still well over 11%. FYI, in most countries (inc China), local govt or provinces also spend a lot of money for various activities/projects, but normally education is part of central govt budget.

 

[Totoro]

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official preliminary figures for the whole year gdp are in. 63,646 billion yuan. Last year's military budget was 808 billion yuan, being around 1.4% of GDP. If similar ratio is kept, this year's budget might be around 907 billion yuan, or roughly 146 billion dollars, in today's dollars.

 

[antiterror13]

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official preliminary figures for the whole year gdp are in. 63,646 billion yuan. Last year's military budget was 808 billion yuan, being around 1.4% of GDP. If similar ratio is kept, this year's budget might be around 907 billion yuan, or roughly 146 billion dollars, in today's dollars.

I tend to believe this year military budget will be between 950 to 1,000 B yuan or $153 to $161B or roughly 1.5%GDP

Nice to see China's GDP has passed $10T mark .... $10.3T exactly .... another milestone

 

[Totoro]

Also, this figure of 63 trillion yuan, in light of 9.4 percent total growth with inflation doesn't mesh with the recent change in gdp, as per new methodology. it should be closer to 65 trillion yuan with it. Maybe they didn't want to switch the methodology mid year, but we might see a full revision later on through the year. In dollars it might be something like 10,4 trillion.

 

[antiterror13]

Also, this figure of 63 trillion yuan, in light of 9.4 percent total growth with inflation doesn't mesh with the recent change in gdp, as per new methodology. it should be closer to 65 trillion yuan with it. Maybe they didn't want to switch the methodology mid year, but we might see a full revision later on through the year. In dollars it might be something like 10,4 trillion.

I think, with new methodology (e.g R&D is part of GDP, etc) it will be more likely close to 70 trillion Yuan or $11.3T !

 

[Lethe]

Just a little exercise I did recently that folks might be interested in:

-- using the latest projections for the global economy from

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and the latest data on military expenditures from the

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-- average of MER and PPP projections for 2030, apply latest (2013) military expenditure rate (% of GDP)

Projected Military Expenditures in 2030 (in USD $bns)

USA: 967
China: 627
India: 306
Russia: 163

UK: 88
France: 80
South Korea: 76
Germany: 65
Brazil: 63
Japan: 60
Turkey: 52

Indonesia: 36
Australia: 34

Of course there are caveats and criticisms one can make of both projections for particular nations, and the methodology more broadly, but nonetheless the results are quite interesting.

 

[antiterror13]

As early as tomorrow, China will announce defense budget for 2015. My guess is, it will increase to US$150B from $130B now .... roughly 1.5% of GDP

India just announced its 2015 defense budget US$40B or roughly 2% of GDP, getting very close to Japanese defense spending of US$42B

 

[antiterror13]

well, it seems Chinese defense budget will increase by 10%

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... let me do a simple analysis
At the moment the defense budget is 808B Yuan (~US$129B) .. 10% increase means 888.8B Yuan or with current exchange rate (6.27)will be roughly US$142B ..... not bad, US$13B more.

The extra $13B is roughly equivalent to
* 1.0x Spain's defense budget ($12.7B)
* 4x Vietnam's defense budget (US$3.3B)
* 4x the Philippine's defense budget ($3.2B)
* 1.2x Taiwan's defense budget ($10.5B)
* 0.4x South Korea's defense budget ($33B)
* 0.31x Japan's defense budget ($42B)
* 0.32x India's defense budget ($41B)
* 2.4x Malaysia's defense budget ($5.4B)
* 1.6x Indonesia's defense budget ($8B)
etc, etc