PLA spending is ~2% of GDP, what US wants NATO to spend. It's just 2% of 20T economy with huge industrial capacity and relatively efficient procurement buys a l

PLA spending is ~2% of GDP, what US wants NATO to spend. It's just 2% of 20T economy with huge industrial capacity and relatively efficient procurement buys a lot. And since most of the hardware is new and not replacing deprecated equipment, the number naturally increase until level will production and replacement demands balances out. Ultimately PRC is ~25% larger than US by PPP, domestic MIC is largely indigenous on operate on domestic pricing, it would be weird if they don't have comparable or larger sized fleet. Much of it is also reorganization/rebalancing away from army to navy/airforce, net personel is down, but capital equipement up. It's easier for satellites/media to report 100s of more ships and planes, but not 250,000 less soldiers.