Top Chinese diplomat tells US to 'shut up' on arms spending

As much as i hate to see another country gaining more and more millitary might I can understand the point of the chinese diplomat, US has spend billions in increased spending on the millitary, so has Sudi Arabia, many of those countries are spending alot more then the chinese, besides they are simply modernizing their arsenal from what I have seen alot of their planes are from the soviet era.

 

Well, the US really should quit yappin' about this issue.

Come on, AT MOST China spends $100 Billion on military, while the USA spends $500+ Billion on military. Common sense would dictate that China's military is not nearly powerful enough to pose a real threat. Economically; however, there is a different story.

 

There is a reason why this sort of crap is not good when done by America or China; it just ramps up the aggressiveness. When someone is pushy it just makes want to push back. On the other hand, perhaps the Chinese diplomat is doing their best John Bolton impression. Yao Ming learned that his polite demeanor had to be modified slightly for the NBA, maybe this diplomat is taking a page from that book.

By the way, not commenting on whether it is good or bad but the PRC is from what I understand ramping up it's naval & force projection capabilities as opposed to keeping up with the Joneses.

 

I was just looking for defense budget info on China, and came across this from Space Daily. I have in the past found their articles to be factually correct, though slanted slightly towards the American space industry, and by extension the American defense industry.

The article is also two years old, but it still seemed relative to the discussion. At the very least it is probably very difficult to make an accurate estimate for China's defense spending.

Edit: the article is a piece by a Cato Institute person, so it's probably heavily slanted.

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China's Defense Budget Is All Smoke and Mirrors

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The People's Republic of China persists in conducting a campaign of smoke and mirrors regarding its defense spending. The Beijing government has just announced that it plans to boost the defense budget by 12 percent in the coming year. That is a fairly hefty increase, and it continues a pattern of double digit hikes over the past decade. China's neighbors in East Asia express growing uneasiness about that trend.

But far more troubling is Beijing's continuing dishonesty about the overall extent of its military spending. According to the Chinese government, the defense budget last year was a paltry $22.4 billion. That figure would put China's military spending far behind the levels of such countries as Japan, Germany, Britain, France, and Russia. However, anyone who believes that $22.4 billion is the actual extent of Beijing's military outlays would be a prime candidate to buy a used bridge.

China's official defense budget omits a few interesting items. Those include weapons purchases, military research and development expenditures, and a variety of personnel and other costs. According to the authoritative publication, "The Military Balance, 2003-2004," published by the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies, the PRC's actual military spending is more than $48 billion. Other credible estimates put the figure as high as $65 billion.

Why do Chinese leaders persist in presenting official figures that are so obviously fictional? The explanation may be as simple as communist bureaucratic inertia. All communist regimes tend to lie as a matter of principle. That habit may have persisted in China even as the officially communist system there has adopted economic policies more attuned to Milton Friedman than Karl Marx.

There may also be a matter of saving face. Having lied for years about the actual extent of military spending, the Chinese government would find it awkward at the very least to suddenly come up with accurate figures.

But there may be a less mundane and more troubling explanation. The refusal to divulge the real amount of military spending could be a clumsy attempt to conceal the scope of the effort to modernize China's military. The PRC's forces are certainly no match for those of the United States, but China has come a long way in the past decade from the antiquated, personnel-intensive "people's army" conceived by Mao Zedong.

Beijing is trying to create a smaller but much more capable force -- a true 21st century military apparatus. Among other things, the PRC has deployed more than 500 modern missiles across the strait from Taiwan, and it is purchasing first-rate fighter planes from Russia. Most ominously, China is trying to strengthen its capability to strike at U.S. naval forces deployed in the western Pacific. Purchases of the sophisticated Sunburn anti-ship missiles from Russia clearly point to that objective.

It is unlikely that China is attempting to challenge America's global military dominance. That would be an utterly unattainable objective for at least another generation. It is possible, though, that Beijing may have more limited but equally troubling goals. Is the PRC attempting to create a modern military force capable of intimidating Taiwan (as well as other neighbors in East Asia) and discourage the United States from honoring its security commitments in the region because the prospect of confronting China would be both too costly and too dangerous?

There are no certain answers to that question, but Beijing's ongoing falsification of its defense budget breeds suspicions. If the PRC wants to allay such suspicions about its motives, it needs to come clean about the real level of its military spending. The United States and the nations of East Asia are entitled to expect nothing less from a responsible member of the international community.

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i am opposed to the chinese government, but i cant really argue with the guy. the u.s. spends more than the rest of the world combined - we really have no room to talk.

if china was criticizing u.s. arms spending john bolton would be saying the exact same thing he is. "how dare you tell us what to do, we are a soverein nation"

and which country is it that is selling/suppling the world with all these arms?

why do we have an embargo on cuba? b/c they are commies.

why dont we have an embargo on communist china?

 

This was a planned outburst. I think too much is being made of it here. The Chinese government feels the need to bark loudly about Taiwan every now and then. This was purely for public consumption, especially in the U.S. and maybe Taiwan. I don't want to sound disrespectful, but most public interviews with Chinese gov't officials are totally worthless and this is no exception.

The defense spending issue is another sore spot. For valid reasons, the Chinese gov't resents anyone telling them what to do.

 

Well, China does have one of the largest labour markets in the entire world (I think it's the largest) and putting an embargo on China would mean an alarming increase in demand for products that are made in China. Just check ten items in your house and probably 50% have labels reading "Made in China." *checks computer* yep, the computer which I'm typing on is made in china too.

 

one of the reason is that China is US's #2 lender; it will soon pass Japan as US's biggest lender.

If US initiate an embargo on China, China can stop lending $$$ to the US. which country out there has enough cash reserve to replace China. not Japan, Taiwan, UK not the EU.

 

yes, my question was largely rhetorical.

i find it extremely hypocritical that we dont do buisness w/ cuba b/c they are commies, yet china is our #1 economic partner/lender.

its all about $$$ and rich men making more.

 

I'd love to vacation in Cuba.




Keep D&D Civil.

 

Nice beaches, nice people, very poor.

 

Great food.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

Not really...I've had much better Cuban food in Miami and Houston than I did in Havana.

 

There actually is some logic to it - at least how it got started.

The Monroe Doctrine has been a long standing rule of thumb - that the United States would block European political manipulation in the Americas. Additionally, at the time we were very much commited to fighting the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was seen as the force driving the Cuban revolution new Communist Cuba was seen as a Soviet puppet state. How true that is is open to debate. From all I understand, the United States overestimated the involvement of the Soviet Union in Vietnam by 100 fold. Most of the Soviet interest came after the United States became involved.

Sino-US relations, on the other hand, were Henry Kissinger's plan to drive a wedge through the middle of the ComIntern. Traditional 'divide and conquor' tactics. Kissinger thought that he was manipulating the Chinese, but as far as I can tell it was the other way around.

 

Kissinger served at the pleasure of his boss, Richard Nixon.

 

You forgot to post the picture link for the article:

 

I just wonder who China is planning to go to war with with all that spending....or at least intimidate it's neighbors...

 

You don't seem to wonder about the most peaceful country - Japan, sits in 2nd place. Who are they planning to go to war with with all that spending... or at least intimidate its neighbors.

Here are the top ten, go ahead and wonder.

Source: <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Threats_to_Israel/top10militaryspending.html">Jewish Virtual Library</a>

Top Ten Military Spending Countries
(2004 estimates)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Country In Billions of Dollars
United States 335.7
Japan 46.7
United Kingdom 36
France 33.6
China 31.1
Germany 27.7
Saudi Arabia 21.6
Italy 21.1
Iran 17.5
South Korea 13.5

 

Not to quibble, Japan definately spends alot, but those numbers seemed out of line with what I had known about numbers and types of units so I did a little looking.



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Japanese officials resist United States pressure to agree formally that Japan will support more of the cost of maintaining United States troops, claiming that such a move will require revision of agreements between the two nations. But in FY 1989, the Japanese government contributed US$2.4 billion -- roughly 40 percent -- of the total cost. The contribution slated for FY 1990 was increased to US$2.8 billion -- nearly 10 percent of the total defense budget -- and by the end of FY 1990 the Japanese government expected to assume all expenses for utilities and building maintenance costs for United States troops stationed in Japan.

According to some estimates, the unit costs of Japanese vehicles are three to ten times as expensive as those of the US vehicles. Similar price gaps exist between Japan and England, France, Germany and other European nations. It is believed that Russian equipment cost 30% less than equivalent US equipment. Given such huge discrepancies, Japan’s defense spending in reality is at about the same level with those of South Korea and Taiwan.

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Source

Looking at equipment manifests, 'the same as South Korea and Taiwan' is probably a bit generous, but their forces are greater than the other two by no more than 30-40%. In terms of total units they are very similar, but Japan has slightly higher-tech equipment. (i.e. F-15's vs. F-16's)

Taiwan and South Korea combined have a far stronger military capability than Japan.