Tuesday - March 06, 2007
The Chinese Boost Defense Spending
Or How America's Dependence on Cheap Chinese Goods Isn't Helping
China has boosted its defense spending for 2007 by nearly 18%. China is second to the United States in year defense outlays. The Reuter's article makes an important point, in that the real amount of Chinese defense outlays is probably double its official number.
China's will boost defense spending by 17.8 percent in 2007, accelerating the emerging power's string of annual double-digit rises in money for a modern military that reflects its economic strength.
Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for the National People's Congress, said on Sunday that the planned budget for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) this year was 350.92 billion yuan, or about $44.94 billion, an increase of 52.99 billion yuan on 2006.
China's rising military spending since the 1990s followed many years of slimmed budgets and would not threaten other countries, Jiang said.
"In recent years, China has steadily increased defense spending based on its economic development," Jiang told a news briefing. "China has neither the wherewithal nor the intention to enter into an arms race with any country, and China won't constitute a threat to any country."
But his assurances appeared unlikely to comfort Washington, which has repeatedly criticized China's military spending as opaque, nor neighboring powers India and Japan, which have been lifting their own defense spending.
Vice President Dick Cheney said on a recent visit to Asia that China's anti-satellite test and military buildup were "not consistent with Beijing's stated goal of a peaceful rise".
The PLA's 17.8 percent rise is the biggest recorded in the past decade, and was announced two months after China test-fired an anti-satellite missile, drawing claims of military brashness from Washington and regional capitals.
Jiang said China's defense outlay was dwarfed by the Pentagon's budget.
The Bush administration has requested $484.1 billion for the Defense Department in the next fiscal year starting from October 2007. That figure does not cover military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Compared to other countries, especially major powers, China's defense spending is relatively low, whether measured in absolute terms, proportion of gross national product, or proportion of fiscal outlays," Jiang said.
China's 2007 increase comes after a 14.7 percent increase in China's defense spending in 2006, when the official defense outlay reached 283.8 billion yuan ($36.6 billion).
But international experts have estimated that China's true military spending may be three times or more the official figure, with much money involving weapons development and purchases, secret programs and businesses, and paramilitary forces not shown in the public books.
If China, which according to the CIA, spends 4.3% of its GDP on defense, that will be in the neighborhood of $90 billion. The U.S. is in a new arms race with a totalitarian enemy. Too bad our allies, which have similar gross domestic product numbers, spend only one half the amount on their defenses, leaving the United States to once again shoulder the burden.
