Photos puts China’s ‘galloping military buildup’ on vivid display

Aerial image of the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai

 

China’s military spending for 2019 will increase by 7.5 percent to about $177.61 billion, as revealed on March 3, 2019 by an official at Chinese Communist Party’s annual National People’s Consultative Congress.

China orders military to end all paid outside work

BEIJING (AP) — China has ordered its armed forces to end all paid outside work within the next three years as part of a push to make the world’s largest standing military more professional and battle ready.

A Defense Ministry notice viewed Monday said both the regular army and the paramilitary People’s Armed Police would be covered under the ban. It identified no specific fields but is thought to mainly target military art troupes, publishing houses and hospitals that accept paying civilian patients.

Under Xi, China’s defense budget seen defying economic slowdown

(Reuters) – President Xi Jinping is expected to authorize robust defense spending for this year despite China’s slowing economy, determined to strengthen the country’s armed capabilities amid growing unease in Beijing at Washington’s renewed focus on Asia.

While China keeps the details of its military spending secret, experts said additional funding would likely go toward beefing up the navy with anti-submarine ships and developing more aircraft carriers beyond the sole vessel in operation.

Rising red tide: China’s navy, air force rapidly expanding its size and reach

Away from the Chinese military’s expanding capabilities in cyberspace and electronic warfare, Beijing is growing the size and reach of its naval fleet, advancing its air force and testing a host of new missiles, the Pentagon said Thursday.

An annual report to Congress on China’s evolving military capability concluded that the modernization was being driven in part by growing territorial disputes in the East and South China seas, as well as by Beijing’s desire to expand its presence and influence abroad.

China under-reported defense by 20 percent: Pentagon

China underestimated its growing defense budget by nearly 20 percent with its spending likely nearing $145 billion last year, the Pentagon said Thursday.

In an annual report required by Congress, the Pentagon said that China’s defense budget for 2013 was higher than the officially announced $119.5 billion.

“We think that if you start factoring in other considerations, other funding streams that go into the military, other investments that are not included in the defense budget, that it could be up to $145 billion,” a Pentagon official said of the report.

China ups military spending by 12 percent. Are the gloves coming off?

1) The exchange rate between the yuan and US Dollar is sizeable – 6.12 yuan per US Dollar at this very moment.

2) The PLA doesn’t have the same overhead costs, as servicemen are paid peanuts compared to their American counterparts.

3) Screws, bolts and other similar parts do not cost $25 each after everyone gets their pockets lined.

The moral of this story: Don’t ever let anyone use the “But the Chinese costs are only 0.00001% of what America spends!” argument. They’re absolutely clueless, haven’t done their homework, and are the exact reason why one day the United States will get hit with One Clenched Fist.

The Chinese threat (as well as the Russian) is real and becoming more dangerous each day. Combine this with the US un-intelligence community not even knowing what their enemies are up to and, Houston, we have a problem.

The sword is coming.

China made headlines today with its annual military budget, up 12.2 percent to $132 billion dollars this year. That’s about one quarter of the $495 billion military budget that President Obama presented to Congress yesterday.

Predictably, official commentary here stresses that China is a peace-loving nation with no aggressive intentions. But Beijing has also signaled its ambitions to be the power that holds the ring in the western Pacific, and those ambitions have been spelled out, arguably clearer than ever before, in a direct challenge to US military preeminence.

China needs a powerful military, explained Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the National People’s Congress, on Tuesday because “if some country provokes or undermines consensus or even damages peace and order in the region, then China must respond effectively.” 

Shinzo Abe Compares Japan-China Tensions To UK-Germany Before World War I

Japan Prime Minster Shinzo Abe said the current tension between Japan and China is a “similar situation” as the rivalry Britain and Germany before World War I, Gideon Rachman of The Financial Times reports.

From FT:

The comparison, he explained, lies in the fact that Britain and Germany – like China and Japan – had a strong trading relationship. But in 1914, this had not prevented strategic tensions leading to the outbreak of conflict.

China may have largest Pacific fleet by 2020: US

Washington: A US congressional advisory panel sounded a warning Wednesday about China’s military buildup, predicting Beijing could possess the largest fleet of modern submarine and combatant ships in the western Pacific by 2020.

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said China’s military modernisation is altering the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region and challenging decades of US pre-eminence.

State-backed China Shipbuilding to raise $1.4 billion for naval buildup

(Reuters) – State-backed China Shipbuilding Industry (601989.SS) plans to raise up to $1.4 billion through a private share sale to buy assets used for building warships, the first time Beijing is tapping the capital market to fund its military expansion.

The move comes as China creates its own military-industrial complex, with the private sector seen taking a key role, as the country gains a new sense of military assertiveness and deals with a growing budget to develop modern equipment including aircraft carriers and drones.