Well we all know China has been boosting their military spending. But why are they doing this? Just a simple weapons race with the US or a possibility of attacking Tawain?


Huge boost in military spending by Chinese

CHINA will boost military spending by almost 18 per cent this year, a higher than predicted increase that will unnerve the US and fuel fears about the real nature of the "peaceful rise" of the world's most populous country.

The increase was revealed yesterday in a briefing before today's opening of the annual session of the National People's Congress, China's parliament. It continues the trend of double-digit defence spending increases that has drawn criticism from the US and concerns from neighbours such as Japan and Taiwan.

Jiang Enzhu, a spokesman for the parliament, told the briefing that the People's Liberation Army's 2007 budget would be 350.92 billion yuan ($58 billion), a 17.8 per cent increase from last year. This represents 7.5 per cent of China's total budget spending for the year and follows last year's 14.7 per cent increase in defence spending. Last year's military budget was 283.8 billion yuan but American and other analysts have long suggested that China's real military spending is up to three times that amount.

China has the world's largest army - 2.3 million soldiers - but its technological capacity lags massively behind that of the US.

However it has been trying to reduce the size of the army and provide long overdue pay rises and improved conditions to remaining troops to improve morale and efficiency.

The aim is to have a smaller but better trained and equipped military force. China also needs to renew its naval and other capacities and is trying to reduce its heavy reliance on imports for advanced weapons systems by developing its own military technology. It recently, for example, unveiled a domestically designed fighter jet.

In January China successfully shot down a weather satellite with a ground-based missile, prompting international concern about whether China's military ambitions extended to space.

It also prompted the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, during his visit to Asia and Australia last month to voice concerns about the anti-satellite missile test and China's military build-up in general.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, said that while he had no illusions about China's authoritarian government, he was at pains to emphasise Australia's success in building a strong economic partnership with China while maintaining the US-Australia alliance.

The US urged China yesterday to be more transparent about its military build-up.

Asked if Washington was dissatisfied with the level of detail about China's military spending plans, the Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, said the US needed a better understanding of "what China has in mind with respect to its military modernisation, what the doctrines are that underlie this and what their intentions are".

Mr Howard is due in Japan next weekend to sign a defence and security agreement linked to the trilateral security dialogue created at the start of this decade by Japan, Australia and the US. Australia has denied that the security co-operation with Japan and the US is directed at containing China.

Your thoughts?

China knows its technologically inferior to US and Allies... and wants to shore this up as its a weakness in their own military that inhibits their own plans.... The act of reducing numbers to better equip, arm and train its Army is nothing new, and a 10% rise in budget is more inline with a Capital Investment Programme, then operational ramp up for war... Its Armed Forces are outdated demoralised and weakened compared with US. China is fixing this... its plans are at a standstill until this is done... .

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"Barrel High, Powder Dry!"

"Illic est haud effrego ex Veneratio"

Yeah good point, but when all said and done??? lol

I think they are adding 13 new sumbarines within the next few months and also devolped a targeting system similar to the US Navy's aegis system, which can track multiple targets from land, sea and air.

Something like that......
China likes to get Russia's stuff. Take for instance the SS-N-27. Its a torpedo designed to destroy American warships.Russia developed them. China also has kilo class subs along with their song class.luckily kilo class have to surface for X number of hours to recharge its batterires.

And the Russians never sell abroad the stuff they cant overcome.

Re. the beginning of your post. People need to stop believing this at face value. Makes me think of a few things.....

People on this forum saying the "Chinks" would be shooting us with rice cakes.......then they shot down a sattelite. Stupid blind people think the worlds strongest economy running on over 1 billion people is going to have no military ominance. Not dominance. but.......

They have no space program....Untill they flew to space. WOW. What suprise that these backward people could do this......without us expecting it!!!

They need the west....but they conducted the most effective fusion experiment ever...and did it on their own.

When we saw them watching mushroom clouds from Horseback.....we should have stopped picturing Rice Cakes.

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Humans, a renewable resource?
Bumble Bees Die to sting you

Common, I think you misinterpreted my opening comment.... I was not belittling the Chinese People or Government for that matter, but stating a fact that their tech is currently behind the US and Allies, and the numbers advantage does not close the gap, hence smaller army better tech, and the capital investment programe in double % figures to getinto Tech game and catch up... I dont think chinese are backward, just behind the ferocious pace of US Military Tech development...

__________________
"Barrel High, Powder Dry!"

"Illic est haud effrego ex Veneratio"

Interesting point, I can see Putin giving too much away... shows the level of pace the Russians are aspiring to in their Military Tech development....

__________________
"Barrel High, Powder Dry!"

"Illic est haud effrego ex Veneratio"

Fair enough....you seem smart though. A lot of people aren't. Where you say behind, you don't picture river boats and cap guns.

I think that most people don't pay attention to the world, and would be surprised that CHina is where it is. Maybe I'm wrong.

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Humans, a renewable resource?
Bumble Bees Die to sting you

Not at all, that notion is rediclous, and anybody who doesnt pay them as a nation respect for their acheivements and their potental more importantly is living in a dream world of ignorance.... basic rule of war... know your enemy!!.... basic rule of diplomacy, know your friends.... either way, NEVER assume a stereotype...

__________________
"Barrel High, Powder Dry!"

"Illic est haud effrego ex Veneratio"