The military budget of China in 2007 financial year

By Fumanchu - Would you bank on another country saving your bacon when the going got tough? Besides the Americans would not be able to help Japan if its defence forces were rolled over by an aggressor because someone decided that 1% of GDP was "too much" for Japan to spend

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Fumanchu, i have to ask what is exactly the threat Japan is facing from China?
What China will gain by attacking Japan that has a defence deal with USA?

If you recognize that USA could intervene in Taiwan conflict with China what is your surprise that China get a budget that supply it with the tools to defend theirselves in their territory against a superpower attack?

What do you expect? that an economic superpower like China get a poor budget and don´t be capable to defend themselves while the rest of the world do the opposit?

About taiwan i also have to say that the actual status quo is good for China and USA. The one country two systems that grants a in fact independence for taiwan so that both sides of the strait can develop their trades an prepare for future cooperation.
Who is bothered with that situation? Taiwan or China?

The numbers talk for itself:

China's military expenditure in 2005 amounted to 1.35 percent of Chinese gross domestic product, compared with 4.03 percent for the United States, Jiang said.

Jiang, the Chinese spokesman, said the military expenditure would account for 7.5 percent of total government expenditure in 2007, compared with 7.4 percent in 2006.

Military spending accounts for 19% of the United States' federal budget

China 2007 military spending : 45 Billion dollars

USA - For 2007, the budget was raised to a total of US$ 532.8 Billion.
( This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, e.g. $120Bi in 2007).)
If you add 532 Billion to 120 Billion in Iraq, Afghanistan wars you have
a - 652 Billion dollars budget against
the 45 billion from China.
Ever if China number was greater it will never come close to USA budget.
And we are not ever talking about the difference in the quantity of worth weapons.
Relative number of
- Fighter planes;
- bombers;
- submarines;
- Carriers,
- Cruisers;
- Cruise Missiles;
- UAV;
- ICBMs and
- SLBMs
There is no way that this Chinese budget will be a threat to someone other then a political excuse for exercise pressure on China.

Link -

FuManChu said:

The US has global responsibilities/operations. China has no such commitment.

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I don't want to get dragged into this political rabbit hole, but the Chinese (and much of the rest of the world) don't necessarily agree that the U.S. has "global responsibilities". Rather, the U.S. uses its military power to exert influence, both through promises of protection and threats of force.

I personally assume that China would like to exert this sort of influence as well at some point in the future (obviously several decades away). I think it's this prospect that has the "China threat" people in the U.S. worried - they don't want anybody to threaten U.S. dominance.

The thing is that China is pretty open about this, just Google for "multi-polar world" and lots of related material comes up. It's official Chinese policy.

Increasing Chinese defense spending to something like 3% of GDP is the way to do this. Then natural GDP growth will take care of the rest. There's no need to wonder what the Chinese are planning with these increases, they've been entirely up-front about it.

... Ami.

alopes said:

Fumanchu, i have to ask what is exactly the threat Japan is facing from China? What China will gain by attacking Japan that has a defence deal with USA?

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What does any country have to gain by attacking another country? People often think there is something to gain, and if ANY country (I didn't focus on China) were able to roll over the SDF before the Americans could help it would be too late. Which is why the SDF has to spend at least a basic amount of money to keep itself in business. 1% of GDP is not too much.

If you recognize that USA could intervene in Taiwan conflict with China what is your surprise that China get a budget that supply it with the tools to defend theirselves in their territory against a superpower attack?

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But China wouldn't be protecting itself, it would be stopping the Americans from helping the Taiwanese. You can debate the politics, but China would strike the first blow - not the US.

What do you expect? that an economic superpower like China get a poor budget and don´t be capable to defend themselves while the rest of the world do the opposit?

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Look, I am getting pretty tired of this. I have put up with your problematic English and constant inability to grasp simple facts, but I am very tired of repeating myself. Go re-read my posts to realise I have never said that. If you still cannot understand, re-read them again and keep re-reading them until you do.

Who is bothered with that situation? Taiwan or China?

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But China puts unfair pressure on Taiwan. It constantly bullies it verbally, undermining its political structure. It also blocks Taiwanese attempts to gain representation in organisations like the WHO, which are purely non-governmental, just because they are international. They even stop Taiwan signing trade deals with other countries.

How can China pretend it wants Taiwan to do well, when everything it does seems designed to make the island 100% reliant on it? It just suggests China is only interested in having control over Taiwan, regardless of what is actually in its best interest.

AmiGanguli said:

I don't want to get dragged into this political rabbit hole, but the Chinese (and much of the rest of the world) don't necessarily agree that the U.S. has "global responsibilities".

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It has actual military commitments. Whether or not one believes the US should be in Afghanistan and Iraq the fact is they are there and so needed to increase spending to cope. That is a very simple fact.

Military committments alone is a bad argument. Its to suggest that as long China invades something in the middle east, the higher military budget is justification alone.

In any case, the current US military budget is already 480 billion not even including military spending involving Iraq and Afghanistan. Those two invasions are on a separate bill.

Fumanchu -But China puts unfair pressure on Taiwan. It constantly bullies it verbally, undermining its political structure. It also blocks Taiwanese attempts to gain representation in organisations like the WHO, which are purely non-governmental, just because they are international. They even stop Taiwan signing trade deals with other countries.

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I am sorry for my broken English but it seens that you can understand what i have typed and
yes i understand that you talked about the rate of acceleration of China military budget and no i don´t agree that it is a problem.
I have also pasted the news that the military budget in China comes from 7,4 %, of the total budget, in 2006 to 7,5 % in 2007 so it´s not a big increase rate in spending.

About Taiwan. You talked about unfair pressure.
Well other powers in the world use to bombard countrys that are not ever part of their territory claims but are just the case of being in the possession of Oil minerals.
Where is fairness in international relations power games now or in the past.
I used to think that international relations were based in power projection and selfish interest. Don´t it is?

The military budgets of a group of four major powers are exploding since the turn of the century:
1. The incumbent hegemonial power US has doubled her mil budget in the years after 2001 and has fought several premptive wars for strategic reasons (control of the vital mid east region, disrupting bases of asymmetric adversaries).

2.The struggling former superpower Russia has almost tripled her mil budget since Vladimir Putin took power in 2000 and was successfull in turning around Russia's imploding economy and faltering social fabric. Putin and his probable successor Ivanov are intent to spent around 200 bn $ in the next four years in order to modernize their military forces. After a decade of chaos the russian elites (yes it is not only Wowa!) have made the decision to preserve Russia's major power status and that includes obviously paying the price for this.

3.The ascending regional power India has in creased her mil spending by around 60 % since 2000. India has high flying ambitions in this century and more and more the resources to turn dreams into reality. India will be able to enter the global major power competition earnestly late in the next decade but at this time New Delhi may be in a position to tip the balance!

4.China as an ascending major power has proclaimed her ´peaceful rise´ but China's leaders are aware that their military was absolutely inadequate and have consequently expanded their official mil budget by around 15% since the early 90's. Beijing has discovered belatedly that China will not be able to consolidate economic and social gains if the US and even lesser powers like India would be able blackmail and contain China with military force. Additionally many chinese leaders were deadly shocked by the primitivity of the PLA compared with western military forces and they know from their own history that a prosperous China has attracted determined militarily superior aggressors more than once. Lowering the guard would be equivalent to opening the door for the next raptor!

The other notable mil powers like France, UK Japan, Germany and Italy have not expanded their spending significantly (small upward trend in the UK is visible though, South Korea also moderately upwards).
Regional powers like Pakistan and Iran have increased their budget but that will not likely have a true impact on the global strategic balances.

Analyzing all these facts could create confusion but nevertheless a certain interpretation is intriguing:

We are witnessing the formation of a new multipolar global power structure and the ´new great game´ is on for making the biggest grabs. Old powers like France, UK, Germany and Japan are slowly descending into satellite status orbiting around the US in her informal empire but newcomers (in reality they are only back from a long period of weakness!) like China and India are struggling with verve for their piece of the global cake!

Only if France and Germany can comprehensively revive the dream of a real european federation independent of US hegemonialism there will be a chance that Europe will not fade into oblivion but without integration of Russia this kind of new Europe will still not be complete. Of course US policy planners know that well and are working frantically to make Russia the odd man out in Europe (ABM systems in Poland and Czech Republic). After all the above mentioned four will probably dominate world politics in the first half of the century and the resulting dynamic will probably make the world more volatile than during the Cold War (1945-90) and the era of US unilateral hegemonialism (1990-2010). :coffee:

Japan and India is the foremost on that list, it’s not an invasion on the scale of WWII, but territory/border conflict. And reset assured in any conflict US and NATO will be on the side against China. And I do understand Japan don’t want to bank on US or NATO for its own protection, but the fact US base and troops in Japan is already a physiological check for any of its potential enemies.

Russia may currently selling weapons to China, but Russia is also viewing China as a threat. That is why Russia always willing to sell better weapons to India then China. And once Chinese stop buying their weapons, there will not be any real friendship between two countries.

As for the rest the Asia countries, Chinese is probably the biggest focal point for their anger and frustration. They will probably most happily pick up any piece of China after the big players are done with it. The best China can hope for is they are scared enough that they will not stab China in the back, while its fighting off bigger players. Its like a lion traped with a pack of hyenas, eventually the lion will have to defend itself.

It does not require a united front in Asia to fight against China, it’s a common consensus in Asia that a raising China is a threat all power in the region including US.

So China not only has almost all its potential enemy at is border, its also has a strategically enemy that is most powerful nation this planet had ever seen. What will you do if you are in china’s position? Give up and die?

China will have to prepare for the future at its soonest, just as other nation in the world. And especially for China, because the world option will be against them just because their political system.

So your point of China has no declared enemy currently is irrelevant, because for China its like you are the only kid on the block that don't have a dad. They are probably the one country aside from US that will have to fight for itself when war breaks out. And by then even if you put 100% GDP into your military, it would be too late…

As for your take on Taiwan, Taiwan is not really a regional power. It's exsitence is based on US Military Power, therefore its like more likly to be the 51th state of the US then a part of China now. China wants Taiwan to be 100% reliant on it, because it is the only way to absorbe Taiwan without war.

FuManChu said:

......
The US has global responsibilities/operations. China has no such commitment.

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So again, ur trying to justify US's high millitary budget. But of course, ur just playing with words & going in circles, as u said earlier, u don't feel it's 'justified' but only 'understandable'.

FuManChu said:

......It has actual military commitments. Whether or not one believes the US should be in Afghanistan and Iraq the fact is they are there and so needed to increase spending to cope. That is a very simple fact.

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This is a very dumb argument to make. Using some military commitments to justify US budget or as u prefer, make it more 'understandable' without actually looking if those commitments are 'justifiable' or 'understandable'.

China has to avoid thinking in paranoid ways about her neighbours since only a few would indeed dare to fight against the PRC even if allied with the US (Japan, India under certain conditions).

South Korea e.g. would never join forces with the US and Japan in a war against China because that would be economically suicidal (China is SK's dominant trade and investment partner) and a reunification with North Korea would be buried forever. Of course some people in Asia harbour ill feelings against the chinese people like the viets and indonesians but they know that they will have to work and live with China no matter what happens and if they would have to pay with blood and destruction for their cozy relationship with Uncle Sam they will make simply a rational decision and strike a mutually profitable deal with China.

One thing is of utmost importance though: China must avoid to antagonize Russia! Although China nay not need more russian weapons one day she will need russian energy and raw materials permanently! Also an anti-chinese policy by Moscow probably in collaboration with Washington, Tokyo and New-Delhi would isolate China and the result would be a strategic disaster. China would be well advised to handle Moscow with care and deepen steadily economic and military ties gradually increasing the potential cost of a break for Russia to an unbearable point.