China's Defense Spending Thread

[2handedswordsman]

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

Personally i am a technology fan at first,i get impressed with all these delicate and deadly machines,i know that many inventions from these will put in civilian use making peoples life easier,but i don't want to see them destroying each other both machines and people.At the moment and for serious reasons,human concioussness cannot overcome the dialects of advanced technology for peaceful or military appliance.Better for all is to "lay low"

 

[vincent]

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.

Countries generally spend as little as possible on the military because it does not generate any economic benefits for the country. Military is a cost centre in corporate speak. Civilians can't drive a tank to work nor fly to another city in a fighter plane. Military provides no service to civilians on their day-to-day lives. There is absolutely no need for China to spend as much money as Uncle Sam since she doesn't have an empire to maintain

 

[Lethe]

So, how does 15 years at 10% sound?

I think China would prefer to maintain a more modest level of commitment, as such the parity with US military spending that I expect lies perhaps 20-25 years in the future, when China's GDP is significantly larger than that of the USA. But budgetary allocations are a dynamic process. If the strategic environment deteriorates (which is entirely possible), then China can always allocate more funding to defence. The increasing convergence of China-US GDP means that it increasingly plausible for China to match US military spending if it is deemed necessary to do so.

 

[antiterror13]

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.

no offence @Klon ... but I don't think you understood how the economy works, especially macro economy ... you simply couldn't be an expert by reading wiki ... unfortunately ... and it is a reality

You need to understand how the GDP calculation works

1% GDP in real life is hugeeeeee. 1% of Chinese GDP is about $120B ..... thats huge, you could build 6 three gorges dam with it (inc land purchases and people relocation, etc)... just to give you a perspective

1% of USA GDP is about $180B ... imagine what the US could do with the money for homeless and poor people and to revive their economy ... thats unimagineable

if you put $100 bill, the length of $180B money would be 15.6cm * 1.8 * 1,000,000,000 = 280,800 kms long or roughly 7x circumference of the lovely Earth !!!!!!!!!!!!

Think about it mate!

 

[Klon]

I think China would prefer to maintain a more modest level of commitment, as such the parity with US military spending that I expect lies perhaps 20-25 years in the future, when China's GDP is significantly larger than that of the USA. But budgetary allocations are a dynamic process. If the strategic environment deteriorates (which is entirely possible), then China can always allocate more funding to defence. The increasing convergence of China-US GDP means that it increasingly plausible for China to match US military spending if it is deemed necessary to do so.

Sure. Although, unless it's done with very large jumps, it takes time, so maybe we can expect to see something pretty soon. All the programs underway will demand money.

no offence @Klon ... but I don't think you understood how the economy works, especially macro economy ... you simply couldn't be an expert by reading wiki ... unfortunately ... and it is a reality

I don't claim to be an expert, but I do know enough for this discussion.

You need to understand how the GDP calculation works

1% GDP in real life is hugeeeeee. 1% of Chinese GDP is about $120B ..... thats huge, you could build 6 three gorges dam with it (inc land purchases and people relocation, etc)... just to give you a perspective

1% of USA GDP is about $180B ... imagine what the US could do with the money for homeless and poor people and to revive their economy ... thats unimagineable

if you put $100 bill, the length of $180B money would be 15.6cm * 1.8 * 1,000,000,000 = 280,800 kms long or roughly 7x circumference of the lovely Earth !!!!!!!!!!!!

Think about it mate!

Learn something new every day. There was a missed opportunity there, though. If you use a $1 bill, how far can we go?

 

[2handedswordsman]

1% GDP in real life is hugeeeeee. 1% of Chinese GDP is about $120B ..... thats huge, you could build 6 three gorges dam with it (inc land purchases and people relocation, etc)... just to give you a perspective

US must plan a strategy to upgrade its railway network for example.It's a pity the weathier and probably most advanced country in the world to have 80% of it's railways in such a poor condition and non-electrified...Soviets had about 80% of their network electrified in 1980's.Also they need to motivate high tech industry looking forward and dreaming big like an ambitious space program.Enough with these start ups inventing crappy and useless things.This will only get in motion if there's central planning,but this seems quite difficult with the current policies.

 

[antiterror13]

Sure. Although, unless it's done with very large jumps, it takes time, so maybe we can expect to see something pretty soon. All the programs underway will demand money.

I don't claim to be an expert, but I do know enough for this discussion.

Learn something new every day. There was a missed opportunity there, though. If you use a $1 bill, how far can we go?

You are right ... you didn't claim you were an expert in economy... and I believe you need to read more of economic subject, especially macro economy to have a good discussion in this respected forum, sorry

if you use $1 bill ... just simply times by 100 or roughly 700 of the Earth circumference

with $180B, every person in the USA, including elderly, baby, children, teenagers, youth ... all of them could have about $600 each ..... hhahhahaah its a good laptop for $600

 

[Lethe]

If we assume that China's military requirements are purely defensive in nature, aimed at deterring potential threats, and if we assume that defence is more economical than offence and that potential adversaries can be deterred by less than overwhelming superiority, such that China only needs 40% of threat spending to effectively deter that threat. And if we use PWC's latest GDP projections for 2050 and apply current (5yr average) levels of military spending as a proportion of GDP, we end up with the following:

China Military Funding Required to Deter Major Potential Threats in 2050 (in 2016 USD)
USA: $34,102bn x 0.036 x 0.4 = $491.1bn
India: $28,021bn x 0.025 x 0.4 = $280.2bn
Russia: $5127bn x 0.046 x 0.4 = $94.3bn
South Korea: $3539bn x 0.026 x 0.4 = $36.8bn
Japan: $6779bn x 0.01 x 0.4 = $27.1bn

Of course there are many other lesser nations that must be included as part of the potential threat matrix as well, starting with basically every other country in the Asia-Pacific region. Let's be very crude and tack on another $100bn to deal with 'everyone else'.

This gives us a total required spending in 2050 of $993bn. PWC projects China's GDP in 2050 to be $49,853bn, so this translates to 2.0% of GDP.

Other assumptions include that all threats must be deterred simultaneously (because they may act in concert), and that all adversaries are capable of devoting 100% of their efforts against China. These are pessimistic assumptions to be sure, but I don't think China's strategic planners can assume otherwise.

 

[antiterror13]

@Lethe

Totally agreed ... 2% of GDP for Defence is a healthy one .. and I believe China already achieve 2%, perhaps slightly more something like 2.1 or 2.2% .... if you include R&D, Veteran cost, Foreign weapon purchases, etc. Not sure whether strategic rocket force is included in the official defence budget?

Why China don't include R&D and others in the official defence budget? Is it wrong? ... ABSOLUTELY NOT WRONG, just different!

The same way why the US don't include war cost, etc in the official defence budget

 

[FORBIN]

Inexact not wrong... official US military budget include Overseas Congingency Operations (OCO) but ofc base Base funding is more interesting
Numbers for 2018 are not good remains to vote it is very complexe !

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But IIRC Henri K had said for 055 or 052D the R&D is separated China as USSR have five-year plan normaly i think