Should the World worries about China's Military Power?
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China says it plans to increase military spending by nearly 18% this year, to 417.8bn yuan ($59bn; £30bn). The figure was revealed ahead of China's annual parliamentary session, which begins on Wednesday.
Other nations have expressed concern about China's growing military power, and say Beijing is not open enough about what it is spending its money on.
Washington claims that the real Chinese defence budget is at least double the stated amount.
In an annual Pentagon report released hours before China's defence spending announcement, the US highlighted particular concern over Chinese activities in both space and cyberspace.
China said it rejected the Pentagon report as a "serious distortion of facts" that could harm relations between the two nations.
"It breaks international norms... We do not pose a threat to any country. The US should drop its Cold War mentality," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
But China said... Most of this year's military increase will be spent on increasing salaries and accommodating higher oil prices, according to Jiang Enzhu, a spokesman for China's National People's Congress, which begins its annual meeting on Wednesday. Mr Jiang said spending on armaments would rise only moderately.
"China pursues a national defence policy that is defensive in nature," he said.
"China's limited military capability is solely for the purpose of safeguarding independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and does not pose a threat to any other country."
He added that China spent less on defence, as a proportion of GDP, than the US, UK, France and Russia.
But the international community remains concerned.
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Yes, on Taiwan issue.
Who is Taiwan's Protector? Ask yourself
What about Russians?
All involve with World super powers or ex super power.
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Way the go China.
Only the major powers can afford to be worried by China.
The rest are merely just spectators. Why worry there's nothing to be done
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i think what needs to worry isn't military power, what needs to worry if you get a crazy person dictating the military. than the whole picture change over night.
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go read the straits time today.. there's an article writen by someone from the Institute of Strategic Studies.
In it, he states that China's hardware is considered old by western standards, being around 1980ish... Hence, what they are doing is upgrading their old equipment and not engaging itself in an arms race..
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The USA is consistently worrying abt this be in economically, power struggle and alot more.
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Originally posted by pigsticker:
go read the straits time today.. there's an article writen by someone from the Institute of Strategic Studies.
In it, he states that China's hardware is considered old by western standards, being around 1980ish... Hence, what they are doing is upgrading their old equipment and not engaging itself in an arms race..
Not entirely true. IIRC they are boosting their amphibious capabilities as well as their submarine force disproportionate to 'upgrading'. They are also trying to raise a viable carrier force. At the same time, they are shrinking their ground force while making it more mobile. All this points towards a more offensive-oriented role.
Of course, by definition they are not in an arms race, because to be in an arms race, both parties have to have technological parity, roughly speaking. The Chinese are not there yet, but I think they will get there far faster than anybody expects, even with their still sizeable and fairly unwieldy force structure.
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as thier overheads and running costs increase, they will reduce thier overall manpower strength.
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Originally posted by Skye2:
as thier overheads and running costs increase, they will reduce thier overall manpower strength.
Exactly. In fact, that is their publicly stated goal; to slim down the army and upgrade its technology and improve training methodology. And I'm pretty sure that their new training manuals are not going to be copied from the old Soviet manuals ;)
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well, actually it makes sense doesnt it?
logically after the "human-wave" based army, they progress to a more efficient one rite?
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quality + quantity = madness!!!
china is gonna dominate -
the Institute of Strategic Studies - i am not sure the objective of the article.
The US is worried about china non disclosure on its missile capabilities. Since they shot down its own space satellite. The worst part is that they did not inform the world it was going to shoot down the old satellite. It bring to the question if the civilian gov knows about the shooting test? If not than they have not peel off the power structure. The last thing you want to have is some guy sitting in PLA wanting to show the US some ego trip.
China has made headway and expanding its PLAN capabilities they do not want to knock each other in the pacific front.
Can you imagine the alarm must have gone crazy around the world on the day a launch was detected!! and no pre-alert of any test was provided.
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PLAN....very interesting part of the PLA leh.
its also one of the fastest developing branches rite?
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another chinese civil war. anyone?
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The world should not worry about china military !!!
If they want to do you in - easy they just have to sabo the goods which all is produce in china ... before you know whole world 1/2 of the population - either die from poisons for eating, touching, smelling ..... .!!!!
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the usa is hardly worried, they just use it as a distraction while they remove their bill of rights, their consitution, invade afganistan, iraq, and very soon iran, syria, north korea, cuba and eventually the rest of the world.
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china is already a powerful country..........no way to stop unless u want war
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anyone think if US is capable of conducting and sustaining a landing operation on the chinese coast? or perhaps if they would be able to intervene in time if china decides to act on one of their neighbours?
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Originally posted by arball:
anyone think if US is capable of conducting and sustaining a landing operation on the chinese coast? or perhaps if they would be able to intervene in time if china decides to act on one of their neighbours?
I don't think they can invade, but the loss of about 100 billion USD in trade surplus, most of which is going to support the Chinese military expansion, would probably deter the Chinese from acting too foolishly?
Ultimately the Chinese see the US as a rival more than a friend-- I think their recent outburst against the US to cover the riots in Tibet shows that. That said though, it is true that there are no permanent friends in international relations, just national interest.
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Ultimately, China's achille's heel is its growing energy demand. So what if it can start a war if it cannot maintain it? I'm not saying they don't have oil, since they haven't really started drilling in supposedly oil rich areas they own, just that at the current moment, they don't have enough.
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Originally posted by Shotgun:
Ultimately, China's achille's heel is its growing energy demand. So what if it can start a war if it cannot maintain it? I'm not saying they don't have oil, since they haven't really started drilling in supposedly oil rich areas they own, just that at the current moment, they don't have enough.
Yea, well, there's tonnes of oil in Siberia. Maybe thats why the Russians have stopped arms sales to China in the past year :P
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Originally posted by edwin3060:
Not entirely true. IIRC they are boosting their amphibious capabilities as well as their submarine force disproportionate to 'upgrading'. They are also trying to raise a viable carrier force. At the same time, they are shrinking their ground force while making it more mobile. All this points towards a more offensive-oriented role.
Of course, by definition they are not in an arms race, because to be in an arms race, both parties have to have technological parity, roughly speaking. The Chinese are not there yet, but I think they will get there far faster than anybody expects, even with their still sizeable and fairly unwieldy force structure.
Agree, who wants to be reactive when you can be proactive.
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Originally posted by edwin3060:
Not entirely true. IIRC they are boosting their amphibious capabilities as well as their submarine force disproportionate to 'upgrading'. They are also trying to raise a viable carrier force. At the same time, they are shrinking their ground force while making it more mobile. All this points towards a more offensive-oriented role.
Of course, by definition they are not in an arms race, because to be in an arms race, both parties have to have technological parity, roughly speaking. The Chinese are not there yet, but I think they will get there far faster than anybody expects, even with their still sizeable and fairly unwieldy force structure.
that's true.. but like it or not, china is going to be a major power in world politics...
and being one, you can't expect China to not upgrade it capabilities to be on par with USA rite?? besides, america and china disagree on so many issues, having a strong military enables china to stand on more even footing against the usa....
and with the threat of a american attack on chinese territory, albeit very minor chance but still possible due to taiwan issue, attaining parity with american military is imperative for the chinese... unless the taiwan secession issue can be settled soon and peacefully, the rate of chinese military spending will not decrease...
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would it be poss for china to go north instead?
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I don't think China is a country that would go on a "world conquest" campaign. Its military is used to secure and protect its national interests, be it Taiwan, Spratly's or N.Korea.
Do not think the Chinese Leadership to be dumb warmongering fools. Chinese are some of the most shrewd businessmen next to the Jews. Why resort to arms when they can benefit more economically.
More importantly, it has need of a strong military counter balance in the pacific if it doesn't want to be blockaded in again. SLOCs are big on the Chinese agenda as well.
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Well I agree that the Chinese Leadership are definitely smart and shrewd enough (and with their position can take the longer view--unlike in a democracy like the US, ironically) not to go on a world conquest. Still, the three areas you pointed out are more than enough to result in a world war, or at the very least affect our national interest. Taiwan is a given, and it seems like every other country in south east asia claims some part of the Spratly island, while North Korea will always be troublesome.
Also, the unchecked nationalism that the chinese government has actively fostered in the population really worries me. While good in the sense that it promotes national stability, there are times when even the government is unable to control populist sentiment, for example with regards to Japan.