China Says US Spends Too Much on Military

[Feuer Frei!]

Looks like he's got a point.

The United States is spending too much on its military in light of its recent economic troubles, China's top general said Monday while playing down his country's own military capabilities.The chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army, Chen Bingde, told reporters he thought the U.S. should cut back on defense spending for the sake of its taxpayers. He was speaking during a joint news conference in which he traded barbs with visiting U.S. counterpart Adm. Mike Mullen.
"I know the U.S. is still recovering from the financial crisis," Chen said. "Under such circumstances, it is still spending a lot of money on its military and isn't that placing too much pressure on the taxpayers?

"If the U.S. could reduce its military spending a bit and spend more on improving the livelihood of the American people ... wouldn't that be a better scenario?" he said.


The world's two biggest economies frequently clash over financial issues, such as Beijing's resistance to exchange rate reforms and the ballooning U.S. trade deficit with China. Such issues are not usually at the forefront of military talks, though both sides chide each other for their defense spending.China's military budget of $95 billion this year is the world's second-highest after Washington's planned $650 billion in defense spending.
Chen said China is more than two decades behind the U.S. in terms of military technology and Beijing needs to upgrade by adding new hardware such as aircraft carriers.
"China is a big country, and we have quite a number of ships, but these are only small ships and this is not commensurate with the status of a country like China," he said. "Of course I hope that in future we will have aircraft carriers."
Chen said a former Soviet-era aircraft carrier that China bought from Ukraine in 1998 was "a valuable thing" for China and it was being used for research and development purposes.


Chen criticized the U.S. for its recent military exercises with the Philippines and Vietnam, saying they should have been put off due to the heightened regional tensions. Mullen defended the operations as routine.
"The timing of those joint exercises was inappropriate," Chen said. "At this particular time, when China and the related claimants have some difficulties, have some problems with each other, the U.S. decides to hold such large-scale joint exercises ... at the very least this was bad timing."
Mullen countered that the exercises had been planned well in advance and that he wouldn't describe them as "large-scale," though he was open to a debate with Chen on the matter.
The host, Chen, took the last word, saying that even if the exercises were pre-planned, they could have been rescheduled.


Touche!


SOURCE

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

"If the U.S. could reduce its military spending a bit and spend more on improving the livelihood of the American people ... wouldn't that be a better scenario?" he said.

He does have a point here. But actually, it'll be smarter if America actually learns to control the cost of its military procurement.

"China is a big country, and we have quite a number of ships, but these are only small ships and this is not commensurate with the status of a country like China," he said. "Of course I hope that in future we will have aircraft carriers."
Chen said a former Soviet-era aircraft carrier that China bought from Ukraine in 1998 was "a valuable thing" for China and it was being used for research and development purposes.

One must ask the question, what is "commensurate with the status of China?"

And he completely avoids the topic of China's correlation of forces vs other Asian nations (not counting US).

To be fair, the biggest problem is the post WWII military structure, which has many nations basically shedding the bulk of their military responsibilities to the United States. Basically, any large power (be it USSR or China) that is not aligned with the US block has a choice, to count the US in when calculating their force requirements or not.

Any solution that counts the US in results in a force that is overwhelming to the other nations, giving the US an excuse to intervene in the name of maintaining the power balance. Yet any solution that deliberately counts the US out reduces the force level to the point that they will be hopelessly vulnerable if the US chooses to intervene anyway.

The other, more China specific problem is its obsession with Taiwan. Basically, China has to maintain enough short range power projection to crush a medium military power, something that even the United States may find a bit hard. The consequences of maintaining or building up to such a posture to other nations is clear.

The host, Chen, took the last word, saying that even if the exercises were pre-planned, they could have been rescheduled.

And what kind of message would that send?

[TLAM Strike]

The US has the highest GDP in the world (unless you count that mess called the EU a country). Since we have such a huge economy and society we spend a lot over all, so by extension all our government expenditures will be higher.

Now in terms of military expenditures as a % of GDP we are high but not even in the top ten. We rate #11 globally with 11 other countries within 1% below us.

China go pester Eritrea about their defense budget, they are spending over 20& of their income on it! They must be up to something!

[Falkirion]

Yeah that ain't going to happen while China has the largest army in this region of the world. There are too many assets tied up in the area for them to not spend the money.

The thing I fear most is the day China decides to start a war and invades the entire south pac region.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

A possible solution to the problem, though one that will never be executed, would go like this:
1) The US agrees to withdraw from the Pacific all forward deployed forces, and also to severely limit the amount of forces they can temporarily deploy in the region (territorial restriction - quite frankly if they can restrict Soviet movements within their own territory in CFE I see no reason why a convention cannot restrict movement over international areas.

2) To maintain the military balance, it will transfer (over a period of years), a fraction of the equipment it currently holds in the Pacific to various nations she currently defends to maintain an agreed overall correlation of forces with China and b/w various Asian nations.

3) Because the equipment's various costs will significantly exceed the defence budgets of various nations, part of America's defence budget will be transferred to foreign aid dedicated to maintaining said military forces - the countries contribute the personnel and America contributes money.

4) The amount of foreign aid will be commensurate to China's military forces. To avoid an arms race or any worries that America's politicians will delay raising the amount of foreign aid in response to China's growth, the amount will be calculated automatically by pre-set formulae and curves (for example, for every carrier China builds, America will add enough aid to buy and run a wing of fighters ... etc). Alternatively, if China reduces forces in certain categories (such as long distance bombers), the formula will reduce the aid and force the various Asian nations to either shoulder the excess equipment themselves or downsize.

The formula may even take into account the occasional American intrusion in the area, since they constitute some military potential as well. So if America sends more occasional patrols as presence, China gets a bigger force without the commensurate increase in counteracting foreign aid.

5) Of course, if China actually attacks those nations, none of this prevents the US from rushing back in, though it'll a bit longer for them to do so.

[MothBalls]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

"If the U.S. could reduce its military spending a bit and spend more on improving the livelihood of the American people ... wouldn't that be a better scenario?" he said.

Translation: Please buy more unnecessary Chinese crap so we can improve the livelihood of the Chinese people, including the Chinese military.

I vote we write them a bad check for our debt, then tell em to go pound sand if they don't like it.


Buy American, the job you save may be your own. (sigworthy)

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by MothBalls

Translation: Please buy more unnecessary Chinese crap so we can improve the livelihood of the Chinese people, including the Chinese military.

I vote we write them a bad check for our debt, then tell em to go pound sand if they don't like it.

Buy American, the job you save may be your own. (sigworthy)

He did not say you can't buy American. But Americans will buy Chinese because they lack long term vision.

[GoldenRivet]

U.S. Says China needs to mind her own business and build more junk for wal mart.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

My, my, my, are Americans defensive when criticized on their military budget.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

My, my, my, are Americans defensive when criticized on their military budget.

Remember the last time we drastically cut our military budget?

I think it was in 1919...

[Krauter]

My, my, my, China has no right to criticize US internal Policy....

[Armistead]

The last thing China wants to see is the US go belly up, they make too much in interest on all the money they loan us. Sad, we're supposed to be the greatest country in the world, but have to borrow from China.

So many US corporations do business in China creating the beginnings of a strong middle class why ours dies.

We don't have to worry about China, until we default and can't pay our debts to them..Oh, is that coming soon.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by Krauter

My, my, my, China has no right to criticize US internal Policy....

She has no right to interfere with US policy. All countries are free to criticize each other's policies.

[Onkel Neal]

Personally, I think we should cut the military back a lot. Just get rid of everything but the nuke subs and ICBMs, and then expand the drones until we have 50,000 or so. That's all we need.

[Castout]

I tend to agree that US should probably cut military spending by a lot.

Instead of concentrating on 2 major wars eventuality maybe a single major war and another medium scale conflict or two small scale conflicts.

Cutting back vehicles, planes and lastly vessels should help.

But nothing like Neal suggested because drone doesn't provide deterrent since drone doesn't have a presence. Relying on drones for too much would probably risk war in Korea and Taiwan in immediate future. Maybe not Korea I can't see how North Korea could invade its South neighbor.