China plans to raise spending on national defense by 21.8
billion yuan (about US$2.6 billion) in 2004, or an 11.6 percent
rise over last year, Finance Minister Jin
Renqing announced on March 6.
According to Luo Yuan, a senior strategist with the Chinese
Academy of Military Sciences, in recent years all countries in the
world have expanded their military budgets drastically. For most
countries, actual military spending has hit a post-Cold War
peak.
Luo said that in the past couple of years the world has
witnessed an annual average of 10.7 local wars, coupled with
increasing non-traditional security-threatening factors such as
terrorist activities. Confronted with new menaces to world and
regional peace, all countries have revised their views on security
and steadily raised military spending.
Meanwhile, all?big powers in the world are straining to
prepare for a new revolution in military affairs, which will change
the focus of army building from a people-intensive to a
capital-intensive one, and will inevitably require an increase in
spending.
Sources say that the US defense budget for fiscal year 2004 is
US$401.7 billion; adding US$87 billion cost of the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the total reaches US$488 billion, an all-time high.
Japan is second only to the United States with an approximate
defense budget of US$42.2 billion for fiscal year 2004.
A source with a British institute points out that in 2000, in as
many as 20 countries the average proportion of military expenditure
to national GDP hit 2.3 percent, and the figure may rise higher
this year.
Despite its steady increases in defense spending over the past
few years, compared with developed countries China's military
expenditure -- viewed either as an absolute value or as a
proportion of GDP -- should not surprise anyone, said Luo.
Luo Yuan states that there are five reasons for China to
increase defense spending in 2004.
First, to support peaceful national development. Peaceful
development requires that the country have the ability to contain a
war, which in turn requires stronger strategic capability -- and
thus more capital input -- than winning a war. Peaceful development
also means that China's advances are mainly based on independence
and innovation, not vying for strategic resources with other
countries. This also requires greater spending.
Second, to defend national sovereignty and territorial
integrity. The mission entrusted by the state to the armed forces
is to defend national safety and unity and to provide a guarantee
for the comprehensive building of a prosperous society. This makes
it necessary to increase defense expenditure and raise the armed
forces' self-defense operational capability in high-tech
conditions.
Third, to meet the world's new military revolutionary challenge.
The new military revolution makes clear that the trend in military
development has changed from human-intensive to
technology-intensive, which means capital-intensive. In the United
States for example, a stealth bomber costs about US$500 million and
a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier about US$4 billion. Without the
necessary capital input, it would be impossible to promote the new
military revolution.
Fourth, to develop in a Chinese-style leapfrog way. It is a
well-known fact that the Chinese army has made substantial
sacrifices for the nation's economic construction over a fairly
long period. The result is an unfinished mechanized army meeting
the challenge of being digitized. To avoid a huge "generation gap"
between domestic and foreign military organizations, China must
have its economic construction and national defense advance more or
less in tandem, leapfrogging over each other.
Fifth, 200,000 troops will be demobilized. As other countries
have seen, a large-scale demobilization costs money. Former
soldiers need jobs and their families need to be settled; some
military products and equipment require disposal. All these actions
consume substantial funds up front, while the long-term efficiency
of the move is not apparent until later.
(China.org.cn March 9, 2004)