China Military Budget Tops $100 Billion

I disagree. Maybe your bogged down in sea based expeditionary warfare models!! China has huge untapped resources, heaven forbid they venture into Sibera... they've already got Tibet. But then again being a naval power is not what it used to be. The US is safe until China makes progress in space, then it's ground advantage will have the support it needs - not from the sea, but from space. Movement of troops is easy when you control the airspace. As I mentioned, they are building a military which 'will' be unstoppable - but they are not going to stand it up and wave it around like the US does; it will be the basis and the capacity to quickly bring it online at sufficient capability level to survive and thus overwhelm the opposition. The real question is will the US still be wealthy enough to have kept its premier force status if that comes to pass.

 

No I am bogged down by the fact that China isn't even strong enough to defeat Japan in a naval engagement or outbuild Japan because it doesn't have the technology, training, ports, docks, has to spend huge amounts of money on internal repression and a space programe which Japan doesn't have to the same extent. China is so overdone by people who long to see the end of US power that it causes problems. You have to look at a total analysis for economic, cultural, military and political power, while factoring in geography and demographics. Once you do you see the massive weakness of China it has no startegic allies, I mean none what so ever and doesn't look likely to gain any dispite its efforts in South east Asia. The US has Singapore, Tiawan, South Korea, Australia and maybe the Philippines, Viet Nam and Thialand in the future because of the Chinese threat. Japan is supported by the US and is using US help to improve itself, however it doesn't need the US for startegic support to defend itself against China the way other countries do and the Japanese see the US navy as a massive threat in itself. So Japan will look to strengthen against the US using China's growing power as cover for it breaking its own laws. If Japan breaks its chains the US has massive problems and will not be able to ally with China as it did before WW2. The US would likely have to go to war with Japan and China supported by its regional allies to block them both. That is the way things are going unless the US increases its protection for Japan making it political impossible for them to break their own laws.

 

Not the same thing at all.

Italy produces lots and lots of cars. Does that mean they can design and build a good Main Battle Tank?

And notice I am not saying they do not, but just because they can build ships means nothing. In order to project power, you need a great many things. All of which China lacks.

For one, they lack any kind of Blue Water Navy experience. They also lack any kind of Long Term sustainment program to keep their ships out to sea for months on end. They lack the replenishment capabilities they need to do so, as well as the UNREP needed to continue for more then a month or so.

And these kinds of capabilities can't be developed overnight. It literally takes years to develop them. There is simply no way to shortcut time. And no amount of money they can throw at this issue would solve it any faster.

They lack the kinds of ships needed to project power, they lack the kinds of ships needed to support those ships, they lack the doctrine, they lack the experience, they lack the training.

In short, they are like hyperactive children in a candystore with a $20 bill, or like an adolescent in a brothel with $500. They see all these things they want (nuclear subs, ballistic missile subs, aircraft carriers, ROROs), and just want to run around buying anything they think they need.

But they are not doing a great many other things. The US Navy conducts 6+ month long deployments on a regular basis, with it's ships crisscrossing the globe. Fleets with an Aircraft Carrier, fleets dedicated around Amphibious Groups, all kinds of fleets, some just for the purpose of resupplying other fleets. We have had ships on station for periods of a year or more, continuing combat missions during that time.

China has done none of that. The most we have seen them do is give some support off the Somali coast, and they are constantly having to move ships to and from China in order to do that.

What you are saying may seem correct, when looked at shallowly without much experience in this area. But when you look deeper, it becomes obvious how lacking China really is in their Navy.

 

Really?

Well, consider this then.

Myopia is under attack from Hypermetropia. The UNSC has unanimously passed a resolution authorizing a nation to give whatever assistance Myopia wants. And Myopia asks for 3 Infantry Brigades, and an Armored Division.

Well, guess what the only country on the planet is that can actually assemble those assets, and place them in Myopia within 30 days?

Well, it's not Russia or China, unless Myopia is directly on their border. Neither one has either the airlift or sealift capability to move that kind of equipment.

But please, if the "sealift based expeditionary warfare model" is obsolete, what has replaced it?

 

You'z are missing the point, who said anyone wants to replicate what the US is doing, its inefficient and ineffective from a Chinese mindset, and they would not be going to wage war to the US playbook anyway. I'm not going to repeat myself, but nothing said above challenges my point when considered in terms of Chinese strategy and interests. It's pretty shortsighted to compare everything only in terms of your own strength.

... but if sticking your head in the sand helps you thump your chest, go ahead.

 

And what is China doing to replace it?

They do not even have the capability to take Taiwan for goodness sakes. YOu are the one saying that the US strategy is obsolete, but do not say what the strategy actually is that will replace it. You say "look to China". Well fine, what is China doing?

Because they are not doing fleet operations, they are not increasing sustainment training, they are not operating for months at a time with a mixed-component fleet, they are doing absolutely none of the things to indicate they are doing anything different then they were 30 years ago.

Which is pretty much nothing.

 

Your still thinking in western concepts.... strategy for what? China is not interested in promoting western principles of democracy around the world and pitching security 'allies' as fulcrums of US policy, they are only interested in increasing their wealth, business 'transactional relationships', and being in a position to continue growing long term.

 

Modern war is a bit different. Last conflicts have demonstrated that wide armies are obsolete and expensive elephants to move ... to do substantially nothing [think to what has happened in the last decade in Afghanistan and Iraq].

Actually I don't share the opinion that high tech cannot be not only pivotal, but decisive. China can send 10,000,000 of soldiers to invade Central Asia, but Beijing cannot send them to attack the United States ... asking them to swim!

This means that a projection about a real war against US asks for advanced navy tech. In detail they need new anti-sub systems [to detect AI units], more advanced subs to attack battle groups with advanced anti-sub systems, stealth air force units to reach the strategic equilibrium in the air. New anti stealth detection systems [if they are able to develop them ... of course], and so on, and so on ...

 

maybe they think they have WMD...

 

I agree, large standing armies are good only for holding occupied territory, but of relevance they are a much larger base to draw significant special units from within. That very point you make actually underlines why having a capacity to move large numbers of troops is actually less relevant. Considering the 'strategy' of China, its good not to think about it in those Cold War and earlier era concepts.

 

But actually Beijing is not thinking to that. So far China is running a very smart geopolitical strategy. In Afghanistan we fought, but Chinese are getting copper from that land ...

In Iraq, today Chinese societies make great business with oil [again, we fought there, in the case of Iraq, that "we" is a bit enlarged ... Italians arrived later, under British command, in the south],

To add a recent example, in Senegal they have bought the fishing rights.

Personally I think that China is preparing the competition with the West on the base of a kind of new colonialism.

In any case they are investing a lot in Navy and Air Force.

China is developing their stealth fighters and about seas, they are studying more advanced detection systems as well.

And they are spending a lot, as we are discussing ...

 

It's widely believed by American intellegence officals that China spends much more than they say they do, in black budget programs. It's so as not to alarm other countries, and spark an arms race between the US and China.

 

China is not a democracy with free press harassing the politicians ... the press is controlled and the political leadership is substantially totally control free.

In a few words: they can declare what they want.

 

And there are a great many other things to consider.

For example, the biggest single part of the budget, payroll and benefits. A "Single Term" enlistee is not allowed to have a spouse, no dependents, and makes less then $50 a month. Therefore just this part of their budget alone is miniscule when compared to that of the US. Pay and dependent care are gigantic parts of the military budget.

Also, all of their equipment is made by the State. They literally get it at cost, something the US military has not had since it closed Mare Island Naval Shipyard, and the Springfield Armory.

 

Do you have a link to the budget text? It does matter tremendously. For example, China's navy, missles, and airforces are incredibly weak. Taiwan, which spends a tenth of what they do, has the military resources to compete with China by air or sea.

I'm intrested in knowing exactly what China's spending this large sum of money on. Formalizing "the comment" seems likely, as the US said it would no longer tolerate Chinese hacking.

"The comment" has been reviewing our trade secrets for a decade. They don't touch or move anything, but just look. I worry that open cyber instigation will lead to actual damage.

 

I would never call them "weak". After all, quantity has a quality all it's own.

I would call it "shallow" however.

 

Second biggest airforce in the world is "shallow" now. Oh, well.

 

Remember, I clearly said "quantity has a quality all it's own", a quote you should be familiar with. But as I have also said, simply relying on numbers on paper does not tell the entire story.

The largest inventory of fighters in the PLAAF (roughly half of their fighter inventory) is the Chengdu J-7, a domestically made 1960's era copy of the 1950's era MiG-21. Not even Russia uses the original anymore, the last in their inventory were grounded over a decade ago.

When it comes to transport aircraft, there they are horribly deficient. Their most populous transport is actually the Shijihuang Y-5, a domestically made copy of the An-2 Colt! Designed at the end of WWII, this biplane probably has the largest production of any military aircraft in history. But with a cargo capacity of only 12 passengers (or 2,100 kg of cargo) and a max airspeed of only 250 kph, this in no way can be taken seriously as a tactical cargo aircraft.

And their second most populous cargo aircraft is the Shaanxi Y-8, a domestically made An-12 copy. Comparable to the C-130, but they only have 60 of them.

For aerial refueling, they have 10 Xian H-6, a domestic copy of the Tu-16 Badger bomber.

And I can go on, but hopefully you get the point. The PLAAF is shallow, has a very limited operational range, and flies aircraft that either the US or Russia would chew up without to much trouble.

Consider this, the entire Fighter force of the PLAAF amounts to 1,308 fighters, almost half of them (552) the aforementioned MiG-21 clone.

The US has between the F-15, F-16219 and F-22 alone has 1,226 fighters. And to tip the scales even more, let's throw in the 515 F/A-18F Super Hornets of the US Navy-Marine Corps, and another 628 F/A-18 A/B/C/D Hornets.

 

"Shallow" is a wrong adjective for it.

So? US no longer operates Saturn 5, despite it is decisively more potent than anything you operate now. Same with F-14.
Anyway, being older doesn't make it useless.

And as if you exclude all J-7, there still would be about 450 4-th generation fighter aircraft. A force to be considered.

They are not planing to go to war overseas right now, they have sufficient infrastructure to transport all equipment by land within their borders, so why to make a fuss about lack of transport aircraft?

The same thing here. No plans for air supermacy and missions overseas--->no aerial refueling aircraft. It is naive to judge them according to your military doctrine.

Interestingly enough, you havn't mentioned those 120 bombers they have.

I havn't claimed that Chinese airforce is bigger or better than USAF, but it is nowhere near to "shallow". PLAAF has 2 times more fighter aircraft Japan and Taiwan have combined, moreover they have achieved somewhat of a technological edge over Taiwan, which operates 120 F-16 of outdated Block 20 configuration, MiG-21 peers (F-4 and F-5), Mirage-2000-5 and domestically produced junk AIDC F-CK-1A.

 

Uh, 120 Xian H-6's? I do not think that those would scare even Vietnam.

The H-6 is a copy of the Tu-16 Badger, an early 1950's Soviet bomber that was a copy of the US B-29 with jet engines.

I did not bother to mention it because they were so not worth mentioning in the first place.

And yes, shallow is correct, no matter how much you do not like the term. The only use the PLAAF has is to frighten their own population.

King of like their most populous tank, the Type 59. Good for running over students in Tiananmen Square, but not much else.

 

Apparently you don't have problems with 50-th B-52, but suddenly a 50-th Tu-16 copy won't scare anybody. The age of the design is irrelevant. The weapons it is capable of using are.

Also....a B-29 copy? You are too much into copy thing. But,hey! They both have wings, after all!



Not even close.

120 bombers are not worth mentioning. Got it.

*facedesk*

Airforce is not a mean to frighten population. Police structeres are.
Otherwise they won't be developing 5-th generation fighter and stick to WW2 style Sturmovik.

Good for everything else, except fighting other MBT.

 

First off, the B-52 is not a copy of the B-29. Do a little research, sheesh!

The B-52 came from a USAAF request for a bomber with intercontinental range. The winning proposal was for what Boeing called the Model 462. A contemporary straight wing design with 6 turboprop engines. The new Air Force was originally enthusiastic about this design, which essentially was an upscaled B-29. But they quickly soured once they realized the size and runways it would need. So Boeing was ordered back to the drawing board.

This time they put forward Model 464, a smaller bomber with only 4 engines.

Then enter General Lemay, who expressed the need for a nuclear bomber with jet engines. So back to the drawing boards yet again, and an entirely new aircraft was designed.




The Model 464-49.

And I have no idea why you even mentioned the BUFF, I sure as hell did not.

But when you compare the Badger clone to the 66 B1s and 20 B2s, they do not even come close. At that time adding in the 76 BUFFs is just an afterthought. By this time, the XB-52 had been through more then 60 design changes and revisions, and really had become a completely different aircraft.

There is no way somebody would confuse this:



With this:



And we have seen little proof that the Chinese are actually able to produce much of anything. Look back over the last 20 years, and their industrial base has had a pretty poor record of actually selling things to their military. They actually have a pretty poor record of bringing any prototype to actual production.

 

Oh, wow, don't even know what triggered that wall of text on B-52 development. I've mentioned it because

you insisted on design age, that is why I brought in B-52, which is as old as H-6. Oh, and the ridiculous claim of Tu-16 being a B-29 copy "with jet engines". Not even close. Do a little research.

In what? Generally the only three bomber specifications which really matter are range, flight time and payload.
Why to compare different aircraft designs, created for different purposes? Just like Tu-16, H-6 are, basically, intended to hit Chinese near abroad and it is good enough for it. They were never intended to compete with Lancer or B-52.

No, it didn't. It is the same aircraft with minor changes, mostly in electronic hardware.

Huh? So.....by your logic they are armed with stick and stones, no less...
Actually, they are producing everything starting with fighters and ending with destroyers. The only critical stuff they need to import is jet engines.

 

The things to watch with China is its manufacturing capability has to been seen as a potential. All it has to do then is keep up to date with everyone else in a small capacity, which is what they do. So if a requirement arises where it needs to leverage its industry and population base it can quickly escalate its power to unmatched levels, well relatively quickly.

Then China working on CBG's, Space programs, missile development and 5th+ gen fighter aircraft in small numbers and having a massive lower tech force underneath that is not them trying to match the USA, its them spending money wisely while being in a position to ramp up a war effort at near US levels of technology but at a higher quantity.

All the BS about them not having the training is a misdirection, they can just copy US TTP's and train up their larger population with base skills to suit as required, a 1 or 2 year lead up to coincide with the manufacturing ramp up... if and when its needed. The US can try to match it, but they'll never have the numbers to succeed, hence the US has to waste much much more money in trying to find a technological edge (and keep it secret) and keep finding new ones forever.... or at least until Russia becomes an allied power (if ever!!).

Indeed training with low tech equipment could give them an advantage in a serious war, as satellites will be falling from the sky and electronic warfare will be messing with everything else electronic. The US should not let its experiences in the MidEast delude itself to how a war might be against someone other then RPG and AK toting sheep hurders with Iranian artillery IED's. It would be a shame if all that technological advantage didnt work on game day because it had been comprimised.

In that regard the Chinese military could actually be quite the opposite of shallow, and be very deep in the regard that it has a large low tech capability which could be ramped up to include domestically smaller, but internationally competitively sized cutting edge forces if it needed too.

 

The issue here though is what they are capable of manufacturing.

One thing China has been having issues with for decades is engines and transmissions. And this is well known among those that follow their military industry.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/29/us-china-engine-idUSBRE89S17B20121029

Huge segments of their military (both Marine and Aviation) rely upon foreign made engines and transmissions. And I have yet to see any proof that this is going to shift to domestic ones any time in the near future.

No, it is not BS at all.

There are giant levels that China is simply missing the key parts and infrastructure to. And I have outlined many of them in here over and over again, so I am not going to do it again.

But you can't create an entire doctrine and train up for it in 1-2 years. Just can't be done. Especially if key parts (like the ships and aircraft required) simply do not exist yet.

And numbers mean little to nothing if they spend all their time tied up to the wharf, or sitting in the hangar or laager because they lack the parts or maintenance to operate. This is a key issue with all aspects of the Chinese military.

Oh yes, that low tech training gave Iraq so much advantage in 1990 and 2003, did it not?

And yes, they are shallow. They lack pretty much any capability to reach out to a country that is not directly connected by land, or outside of their own coastal water. Their troubles in the Gulf of Aiden is proof of this all by itself. The US typically operates multiple fleets in all oceans all around the world simultaneously. And China has serious issues maintaining a single flotilla only 4,000 miles away with a clear and simple shot to, without the need to transverse any canals or straights.