{"id":18107,"date":"2019-10-02T14:24:53","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T14:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=18107"},"modified":"2019-10-02T18:07:37","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T18:07:37","slug":"chinas-military-might-is-much-closer-to-the-us-than-you-probably-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/chinas-military-might-is-much-closer-to-the-us-than-you-probably-think\/","title":{"rendered":"China’s military might is much closer to the US than you probably think"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Robertson<\/a>, University of Western Australia<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

If you watched China\u2019s impressive military parade marking the 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule, you may be wondering how China now compares to the United States in terms of military might.<\/p>\n

The answer: it\u2019s a lot closer than commonly thought.<\/p>\n

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\nRead more:
\nThe history of the People’s Republic of China \u2013 through 70 years of mass parades<\/a>
\n<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

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China\u2019s annual military budget is estimated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute to be about 1.7 trillion yuan<\/a>. This is about 1.9%<\/a> of China\u2019s GDP.<\/p>\n

Using market exchange rates, China\u2019s annual military spending converts to about US$228 billion. By comparison, the US military budget is US$649 billion
\n\u2013 or 3.2% of US GDP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hence China\u2019s military budget is usually thought of about 40% that of the US \u2013 which is often characterised as spending more on its military than the next 10 countries combined<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Such an approach, however, dramatically overstates US military capacity \u2013 and understates China\u2019s. In real terms, China\u2019s spending is worth abougt 75% that of the US.<\/p>\n

Purchasing power parity<\/h2>\n

The problem is that a simple currency conversion doesn\u2019t reflect actual price differences across countries. An American or Australian visiting India or China, for example, finds things like street food, nannies and domestic help are all very cheap. The same principle applies to military spending.<\/p>\n

The salary of a US soldier might be, say, $US60,000 a year. This could pay the salaries of several, if not many more, soldiers in the People\u2019s Liberation Army.<\/p>\n

To make a more accurate comparison of the real purchasing power of a country\u2019s military spending, we need to factor in differences in labour and operational costs between countries.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve computed the costs of defence services across countries, looking at personnel, operations and equipment costs.<\/p>\n

For some components of military spending, such as the cost of buying a fighter plane or warship, it\u2019s appropriate to use market exchange rates to compare across countries. For other components, particularly personnel expenditure, it\u2019s better to compare wage costs for similarly trained personnel. These costs differences can then be used to construct \u201cpurchasing power parity\u201d exchange rates specific to the defence sector.<\/p>\n

Using these rates allows us to see how much the spending in each country actually buys \u2013 allowing for price differences between countries as well as how defence planners might react to these different prices given their defence priorities.<\/p>\n

Looking at these differences, my analysis suggests China\u2019s military spending is equivalent to the US spending about $US455 billion.<\/p>\n

This is nearly double what is suggested by the figure obtained using a straight currency conversion. It means, in real terms, China\u2019s annual spending is about 74% of the US.<\/p>\n

Global comparisons<\/h2>\n

Similar results hold for other countries where labour and services prices are comparatively low.<\/p>\n

For example, official exchange rate estimates suggest military spending by Russia and India is just 10% of the US. But factoring in the lower prices facing their defence sectors suggests Russia\u2019s military budget is equivalent to about 30% of the US budget; and India\u2019s about 40%.<\/p>\n

This analysis also changes the impression we have of countries like Indonesia, Ukraine and Colombia.<\/p>\n

For example, Indonesia\u2019s military budget in 2018 equates to a \u201cmere\u201d $US8 billion. But in terms of the actual resources it can purchase, a more accurate estimate is that its expenditure is worth about $US36 billion \u2013 substantially more than Australia\u2019s military budget.<\/p>\n

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\n
\nRead more:
\nLessons Indonesia can learn from China in building maritime power<\/a>
\n<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

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Of course, just because an army costs a lot, or has a lot of personnel, doesn\u2019t mean it is good value. The numbers don\u2019t tell us everything we might want to know about relative military power. But they do give a very different, and more accurate, picture of the global distribution of military muscle.<\/p>\n

So you should have been impressed by the might of China\u2019s military on parade. The US is still number one – but not by as much as you might think.\"The<\/p>\n

Peter Robertson<\/a>, Professor, University of Western Australia<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Robertson, University of Western Australia If you watched China\u2019s impressive military parade marking the 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule, you may be wondering how China now compares to the United States in terms of military might. The answer: it\u2019s a lot closer than commonly thought. Read more: The history of the People’s Republic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":18108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[145,2570,104],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18107"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18112,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18107\/revisions\/18112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}