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And this is the deficit we know about. In reality it could be much larger, something like 1000% of GDP. The situation is the same with China’s military budget.

And this is the deficit we know about. In reality it could be much larger, something like 1000% of GDP. The situation is the same with China’s military budget. In reality it’s probably 2x or 3x larger than the official numbers we have.

ggm 8y ago
The thing is, they don't show the hardware which would go with the spend. The construction equipment used to occupy the Spratleys has to then be followed by new ships, new airplanes, new heavy armor. Domestically, the provinces are very powerful. the PLA is not out in force in complex, expensive hardware, its paramilitary presence which is not a huge increasing cost given mandatory post-university universal conscription. Missiles and Nuke are a fixed cost. TL;DR absent a plan for war (which they don't have, and show no signs of wanting) there is no visible basis to assume a huge hidden military budget.
- microdrum 8y ago
  They are literally manufacturing islands in the ocean.
  - ggm 8y ago
    Cheaply btw. Pumping sand is not hard. And, they're doing it on existing reef structures. The sand only lasts because there is an anchor there. This is not primarily military budget, any more than the US army corps of construction is military budget when it builds dams and Levees in the USA mainland (which btw, it does, a lot) Military budget is materiel. Sand, even runways, is not Materiel.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      The only purpose for building those islands out is militarily. If it’s not coming out of the PLAN budget directly, I would be very surprised.
      - ggm 8y ago
        The purpose is to solidify the claim of territory, the enforcement will be military because China won't back down on this, and the law court path has been rejected. Open seas is the current active, western fleet response. If the Chinese miltary get the upper hand in the political conversation they WILL use this to argue for budget, to get more aircraft carriers, and more sea-active weapons. But that is future spend and is not on the current budget horizon is it? So yes, there is a war war not jaw jaw aspect to building the islands, but the budgetary impact? low. Until they fund bulding the aircraft carriers, and stealth UAVs.
        seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        But without those investments those islands are hardly definsible, too far from hainan to be easily resupplied during hostilities and no intrinsic production capabilities in their own. Even with further military try investments, they are still probably strategically useless.
midwestposdoc 8y ago
China's GDP is probably 10% of what they reported.
- repolfx 8y ago
  No, it seems to be the other way around. China's GDP figures are definitely false but likely to be inflated, not suppressed.
  - xutopia 8y ago
    Can you explain why that is for the ignorant ones like me?
    - Harvey-Specter 8y ago
      A country might want to inflate their reported GDP to make the country look more attractive to foreign investment.
    - smacktoward 8y ago
      Because the statistics are produced by local apparatchiks, and the local apparatchiks all want their jurisdiction to look like it's breaking records so they can get promoted and become something bigger than a local apparatchik. And the central government wants to look successful too, so nobody there has any interest in pushing back. High numbers mean everybody in the system wins, while low numbers profit nobody, so the numbers come out high.
    - repolfx 8y ago
      Chinese GDP is suspiciously stable at exactly the same value for long periods of time, and doesn't seem to correlate with other statistics that usually do correlate, like electricity usage. IIRC it's not even a secret that China's GDP stats are useless. It's a problem the government has officially admitted to. As a sibling comment notes, the issue is that they aggregate stats from regional governors who are incentivised to tell the party what it wants to hear.
  - Harvey-Specter 8y ago
ataturk 8y ago
Indeed, without real transparency, how do we know anything at all?
rdlecler1 8y ago
Certainly they’re getting 2x - 3x more per dollar they spend both because of intrinsic lower costs but also IP theft.
- EGreg 8y ago
  Did China agree it is theft? The US doesn’t respect trademarks like Kobe Beef, Parmesan Cheese etc. http://www.internationaltrade.law/blog/why-youve-probably-never-had-real-champagne-parmesan-or-kobe-beef http://www.internationaltrade.law/blog/why-youve-probably-ne...
  - dpark 8y ago
    > I can pretty much confirm that I have never had real Parmesan Cheese, and neither have you. That is a bizarre claim. If you’ve only ever bought pre-grated Kraft “Parmesan”, that might be true. But it’s not difficult to buy Parmigiano-Reggiano in nicer grocery stores. Also the EU has hundreds of special designations. It’s not surprising that the US would decline to give a blanket deference to EU law in this area.
    - EGreg 8y ago
      While it may not be difficult, what I said is correct. Why should China respect IP of USA if USA doesn’t respect IP of Europe?
      - dpark 8y ago
        It’s not correct. We have international agreements with China and others nations broadly covering patents and copyrights. We have no such agreements covering regional appellates.
  - rdlecler1 8y ago
    If you don’t see the difference between using a name of appellation and hacking into a computer and downloading research that cost billions of dollars then I’m afraid we can’t have a discussion about this.
vondur 8y ago
I've read that China spends more on internal security rather than normal Military spending.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  This used to be true, it was definitely true 10 years ago. I doubt that is still true today, though. China doesn’t make these numbers public anyways so we can only guess.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  At least it used to be said by China experts that the army was built to suppress internal dissent and not to repel foreign invaders, and certainly not for foreign wars. Since then China has invested heavily in rebuilding its military but I don't know how that mission of the army has changed. China's geography, size, and population makes a foreign land invasion very unlikely, beyond some strips of land disputed with Russia and India or a tide of refugees from North Korea. Think of how expensive and difficult Iraq and Afghanistan are for the U.S.; China would be orders of magnitude beyond that.

ggm 8y ago

The thing is, they don't show the hardware which would go with the spend. The construction equipment used to occupy the Spratleys has to then be followed by new ships, new airplanes, new heavy armor. Domestically, the provinces are very powerful. the PLA is not out in force in complex, expensive hardware, its paramilitary presence which is not a huge increasing cost given mandatory post-university universal conscription. Missiles and Nuke are a fixed cost. TL;DR absent a plan for war (which they don't have, and show no signs of wanting) there is no visible basis to assume a huge hidden military budget.

microdrum 8y ago
They are literally manufacturing islands in the ocean.
- ggm 8y ago
  Cheaply btw. Pumping sand is not hard. And, they're doing it on existing reef structures. The sand only lasts because there is an anchor there. This is not primarily military budget, any more than the US army corps of construction is military budget when it builds dams and Levees in the USA mainland (which btw, it does, a lot) Military budget is materiel. Sand, even runways, is not Materiel.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    The only purpose for building those islands out is militarily. If it’s not coming out of the PLAN budget directly, I would be very surprised.
    - ggm 8y ago
      The purpose is to solidify the claim of territory, the enforcement will be military because China won't back down on this, and the law court path has been rejected. Open seas is the current active, western fleet response. If the Chinese miltary get the upper hand in the political conversation they WILL use this to argue for budget, to get more aircraft carriers, and more sea-active weapons. But that is future spend and is not on the current budget horizon is it? So yes, there is a war war not jaw jaw aspect to building the islands, but the budgetary impact? low. Until they fund bulding the aircraft carriers, and stealth UAVs.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        But without those investments those islands are hardly definsible, too far from hainan to be easily resupplied during hostilities and no intrinsic production capabilities in their own. Even with further military try investments, they are still probably strategically useless.

midwestposdoc 8y ago

China's GDP is probably 10% of what they reported.

repolfx 8y ago
No, it seems to be the other way around. China's GDP figures are definitely false but likely to be inflated, not suppressed.
- xutopia 8y ago
  Can you explain why that is for the ignorant ones like me?
  - Harvey-Specter 8y ago
    A country might want to inflate their reported GDP to make the country look more attractive to foreign investment.
  - smacktoward 8y ago
    Because the statistics are produced by local apparatchiks, and the local apparatchiks all want their jurisdiction to look like it's breaking records so they can get promoted and become something bigger than a local apparatchik. And the central government wants to look successful too, so nobody there has any interest in pushing back. High numbers mean everybody in the system wins, while low numbers profit nobody, so the numbers come out high.
  - repolfx 8y ago
    Chinese GDP is suspiciously stable at exactly the same value for long periods of time, and doesn't seem to correlate with other statistics that usually do correlate, like electricity usage. IIRC it's not even a secret that China's GDP stats are useless. It's a problem the government has officially admitted to. As a sibling comment notes, the issue is that they aggregate stats from regional governors who are incentivised to tell the party what it wants to hear.
- Harvey-Specter 8y ago

ataturk 8y ago

Indeed, without real transparency, how do we know anything at all?

rdlecler1 8y ago

Certainly they’re getting 2x - 3x more per dollar they spend both because of intrinsic lower costs but also IP theft.

EGreg 8y ago
Did China agree it is theft? The US doesn’t respect trademarks like Kobe Beef, Parmesan Cheese etc. http://www.internationaltrade.law/blog/why-youve-probably-never-had-real-champagne-parmesan-or-kobe-beef http://www.internationaltrade.law/blog/why-youve-probably-ne...
- dpark 8y ago
  > I can pretty much confirm that I have never had real Parmesan Cheese, and neither have you. That is a bizarre claim. If you’ve only ever bought pre-grated Kraft “Parmesan”, that might be true. But it’s not difficult to buy Parmigiano-Reggiano in nicer grocery stores. Also the EU has hundreds of special designations. It’s not surprising that the US would decline to give a blanket deference to EU law in this area.
  - EGreg 8y ago
    While it may not be difficult, what I said is correct. Why should China respect IP of USA if USA doesn’t respect IP of Europe?
    - dpark 8y ago
      It’s not correct. We have international agreements with China and others nations broadly covering patents and copyrights. We have no such agreements covering regional appellates.
- rdlecler1 8y ago
  If you don’t see the difference between using a name of appellation and hacking into a computer and downloading research that cost billions of dollars then I’m afraid we can’t have a discussion about this.

vondur 8y ago

I've read that China spends more on internal security rather than normal Military spending.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
This used to be true, it was definitely true 10 years ago. I doubt that is still true today, though. China doesn’t make these numbers public anyways so we can only guess.
forapurpose 8y ago
At least it used to be said by China experts that the army was built to suppress internal dissent and not to repel foreign invaders, and certainly not for foreign wars. Since then China has invested heavily in rebuilding its military but I don't know how that mission of the army has changed. China's geography, size, and population makes a foreign land invasion very unlikely, beyond some strips of land disputed with Russia and India or a tide of refugees from North Korea. Think of how expensive and difficult Iraq and Afghanistan are for the U.S.; China would be orders of magnitude beyond that.