The military budget of China in 2007 financial year

The survey question is extremely broad: "Please tell me if you think each of the following are having a mainly positive or mainly negative influence in the world"

There's no way to tell what aspect of the country people are responding to.

My impression (based simply on the people I know - not any scientific evidence) is that the very negative view of the U.S. in the survey is based on foreign policy, while the slightly negative view of China is based on economic competition and perhaps the impression people have of civil rights within the country.

When most people think of China the first reaction is "cheap goods", not "military power". People in the West are worried about losing jobs to Chinese manufacturers.

... Ami.

Schumacher said:

Hmm, either you're trying to mislead others or simply does not understand the article u posted yourself.

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Either you're trying to mislead others or you don't understand the point I was making. Which was very obvious, so either you really do need to consider the people you hang out with, or need to stop playing dumb.

In the chart ranking all countries, China is still ahead of US whose military budget u claim is justified. And the majority still see China as positive, but of course if u only care abt the opinions from western countries, I rest my case.

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1. I never said the US spending was justified. I said it was understandable that the US has increased its budget given the increase in its military operations.

2. I was responding to a very specific point made by AmiGanguli. If he was talking about "the West" why would I not say what people in "the West" generally thought?

AmiGanguli said:

There's no way to tell what aspect of the country people are responding to.

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True, but then again I was blasting Schumacher's feeble attempt to counter my response to you, by showing updated figures. Also, and I just spotted this, even in the article he quoted this was said:

"But most people are negative about China significantly increasing her military power."

So maybe "the West" sees China as being more positive in non-military issues, but not over defence spending. If views of China's influence are no better in the latest figures over the previous poll, I doubt views of its military increase have improved either.

As an additional point, if the European Parliament is any indication of European attitudes, then there is a fair amount of negativity towards China's foreign policy as well as domestic issues.

FuManChu said:

......
1. I never said the US spending was justified. I said it was understandable that the US has increased its budget given the increase in its military operations.

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ok, if u put it this way.

FuManChu said:

"But most people are negative about China significantly increasing her military power."

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Nice try, but there were no comparison with others with regard to only military power. If one ask only abt military it's likely many of the positives will turn negatives with any country.

Schumacher said:

Nice try, but there were no comparison with others with regard to only military power. If one ask only abt military it's likely many of the positives will turn negatives with any country.

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Hey, you decided to use that article. You should have read it more closely before you tried to use it to counter what I had to say. How much credibility do you have if you are now disputing something that comes from the very article you were relying upon a moment ago?

Once again, this discussion is not about how China is perceived in comparison to the US, India, UK or whatever. It is whether people in "the West" see China as a peaceful country or not, and all the most recent data both of us have supplied rather indicates that is not the case. Just accept that and move on.

ofone said:

And if the USA intervened China to solve the taiwan issue,as the core interest of Chinese government,do you think China will use nuclear weapon to solve the taiwan issue?

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The PRC will not use nuclear weapons to solve the Taiwan issue. If they did, they would be playing to an overwhelming strenth the US has, and they would, in essence, commit suicide. That's not very much along the lines of any Sun Tsu doctrine I am aware of.

No, they will continue to build militarily and economically and work for the day when the issue either solves itself by osmosis...in other words, until the ROC is SO dependent on the mainland that they have no other recourse...or until a military solution is possible, particularly when the United States is either too embroiled elsewhere, or has leadership that has no will or stomoach to intervene.

I believe the last point will be the telling one because right now, the US is making all the moves in the Western Pacific that indicates a very strong message to the Chinese to keep their military hands off of Taiwan IMHO.

Fumanchu, I really don't see why you are trying to spend so much time on this forum talking about stuff like why does China need this kind of defensive increase or that other countries feel more negative toward China than positive.

For the first one, you know what the answer is, but you think the answer is threatening, so it's almost like you are looking for an apology or something from people on this forum. You are starting to sound a little too much like Donald Rumsfeld to me.
It's very clear what the reasons are:
1. Their economy is growing and their cash flow is growing even faster
2. They want to achieve military superiority over Taiwan to a point that US would not want to enter the game.
3. Their top military leaders like Cao Gangchuan still have cold war mentality where they remember vividly the Soviet encirclement of China and now they think they see the same with USA, so they believe they need the additional money to fend it off
4. National pride reason, there is a new found nationalism in China that believes it should be at least the 2nd strongest military in the world ahead of its neighbouring countries of Japan, S Korea and India. This is already showing up in the political realm in China's increasing influence over African countries.

As for the second question, do you think China really cares that the rest of the Western world doesn't like it? It realizes that until it becomes a democratic country, there is always going to be a limit on how many people in the Western world views it positively. But since you are so keen on using stats, I think you conveniently forgot the stats that showed China was more popular than USA in most of the countries around the world.

FuManChu said:

Once again, this discussion is not about how China is perceived in comparison to the US, India, UK or whatever. It is whether people in "the West" see China as a peaceful country or not, and all the most recent data both of us have supplied rather indicates that is not the case. Just accept that and move on.

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I haven't seen anything from either of you that provides evidence of this either way. You would need a survey that asked specifically "is China a peaceful country?". A general question about positive or negative influence in the world doesn't mean anything. Neither does a leading question about "is military expansion good?".

In the absence of something better, I'll stick with my original point - the people I know in Canada and Europe think of China as a peaceful country. I know that's not a great scientific method, but it's the best evidence I've got at the moment.

... Ami.

FuManChu said:

Hey, you decided to use that article. You should have read it more closely before you tried to use it to counter what I had to say. How much credibility do you have if you are now disputing the very thing you were relying upon a moment ago?

Once again, this discussion is not about how China is perceived in comparison to the US, India, UK or whatever. It is whether people in "the West" see China as a peaceful country or not, and all the most recent data both of us have supplied rather indicates that is not the case. Just accept that and move on.

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I read the article & saw the quote & understand it's just a subset of the overall opinion which was positive. U didn't understand this, but just tried to grab anything to support yourself, but how can u if there's no comparison of how others did with regard to this question abt military power.
The discussion is abt PLA budget. For reasons best known to yourself, U may have wanted to limit to western opinions & avoid comparisons with other countries.
This is not smart, especially if better conclusions can be arrived at by including wider opinions & making comparisons.

tphuang said:

Fumanchu, I really don't see why you are trying to spend so much time on this forum talking about stuff like why does China need this kind of defensive increase or that other countries feel more negative toward China than positive.

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TP, I do not feel threatened one bit by China's spending. How can I - I live in Europe. But because I care about Asia as a whole, I am concerned China is running away too quickly over its spending and may cause repercussions in the region.

I think China does care about world opinion in some respects, otherwise it wouldn't try hide the real figure of its spending. If Chinese people generally welcome higher spending, that would be an incentive to say "we spend $50/60/70+ billion on defence". So why does the government hide the true extent of its spending if external, negative views are ignored and the internal ones are mostly positive?

AmiGanguli said:

You would need a survey that asked specifically "is China a peaceful country?".

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I think you're clutching at straws. You originally made the assertion that "the West" sees China as a peaceful country. I used the only data available on global opinions of China to back my point up. What have you done? Just whinged that the questions are not fair. Where's your evidence - as the person trying to establish a fact you should be providing information and allowing others to poke holes in it. Saying "you prove I'm wrong" doesn't cut any ice.

In the absence of something better, I'll stick with my original point - the people I know in Canada and Europe think of China as a peaceful country. I know that's not a great scientific method, but it's the best evidence I've got at the moment.

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Then I think you are deliberately kidding yourself. Maybe you're doing it to make yourself feel better - I don't know. But given you have provided no evidence for your position I think you're incorrect to hold that belief.

Schumacher said:

For reasons best known to yourself, U may have wanted to limit to western opinions & avoid comparisons with other countries.

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Schumacher, I'll ask you again. Are you playing dumb, or are you incapable of reading what others post? I am having a discussion with someone else over how China is perceived in "the West". I will not change my discussion to suit yourself.

If you want to make a more general point to the whole forum, rather than address your comments to me, I will not stop you.

I doubt very much that is ever in the minds of senior Chinese politicians. It's more an excuse used by ultra-nationalist trolls (not you) to justify unacceptable behaviour.

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If you look at Japan's behavior, especially their government and its Prime minister recent comments.


Japan seems enjoy being hated by the rest of the east asian countries. They asked for the menace look and that is exactly what they got. I have met nice Japanese people, but their governments behavior really troubles me. If it is just China's propaganda, then they must have some magical power to influence the Koreans and some oversea Chinese...

No one does, but what's the point of increasing it so sharply if your competitors then increase their's by a lot too? Surely it's better to increase spending at a slower, steady pace and not ruffle too many feathers. Then you have more of an advantage.

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True, but if Japans military spending per capita is 15 times more compared to the Chinese, can be justified by the by the bigger economy. Then why can't the Chinese military spending justified by the double digit increase in the economy. Especially considering whether measured in absolute terms, proportion of gross national product, or proportion of fiscal outlays China's military spending is still low.