China Isn’t Hearing Asia’s Fears About Its Military Buildup - The Diplomat, March 11, 2019

In last week's column for The Diplomat, "China Isn’t Hearing Asia’s Fears About Its Military Buildup," I looked at the 2019 Chinese defence defence expenditure. The response to the country’s new defense budget suggests that Beijing continues to be tone deaf to regional anxieties.

China recently announced a defense budget of 1.19 trillion yuan ($177.61 billion). This represents a slower growth rate in the budget, falling to 7.5 percent as against an 8.1 percent increase in 2018. Nevertheless, there are likely to be predictable expressions of concerns at the size of even the publicly announced budget, considering that it is more than three times as large as India’s, which has the second largest defense budget in Asia.

For the full essay, click here.



China’s military power has expanded dramatically in the last several years. A recent report by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) noted that “since 2014, China has launched more submarines, warships, principal amphibious vessels and auxiliaries than the total number of ships currently serving in the navies of Germany, India, Spain, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.”

Beijing has been closing the gap even with the United States, though the latter still maintains a considerable lead. Where China has been not able to catch up, it has developed certain asymmetric capabilities to compete with the United States. As Andrew Erickson points out, “In many areas, they have weapons systems that only a few other countries possess.” The development of the People’s Liberation Army’s capabilities across all domains has been “impressive” under Xi’s leadership.

Such growth has also led to concerns in the neighborhood. Even countries like South Korea that have generally had good relations with China are beginning to face hostile actions from the Chinese PLA. For more than a year now, there have been repeated violations of the South Korean air defense identification zone (Korea-ADIZ) by the PLA Air Force, the most recent one in late-February.

However, these foreign concerns are falling on deaf ears in China. Headlines like “history proves China’s defense budget growth benefits the world” appear to be more the norm. Officially, Zhang Yesui, spokesperson for the annual session of the 13th National People’s Congress, termed the defense budget hike as “reasonable and appropriate.”

China has continued to reiterate that much of the hike in the defense expenditure goes to meet the salaries and other benefits of the troops, in addition to developing weapon systems, military reforms, and training. It has tried to make the case that China still lags behind a number of countries like the United States and that there are outdated systems and platforms that need to be replaced.

A quick look suggests that China’s defense analysts are largely reiterating the official line. Commenting on the defense budget announcement, Xu Guangyu, a senior consultant with the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, noted that the Chinese military has reached “a normal and stable speed instead of a premature rush.” Chinese analysts also slammed reports that say the Chinese spending in actuality is much bigger than what is announced by the Chinese authorities, saying that “China’s military modernization is meant for self-defense and not threatening other countries. We should not care much about what others say.”

Many Chinese military analysts have also tried to highlight the fact that its defense spending has moved away from a double-digit growth rate since 2016. Chinese military analyst Li Daguang from the National Defense University of the PLA argued that the defense spending of 2018, which was 1.107 trillion yuan, was only 1.3 percent of China’s GDP, a much smaller proportion compared to other countries like the United States and Russia that spend around 4 percent of the GDP on defense. Instead, there are suggestions that as China engages in more international projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative, its security concerns will only go up and accordingly, “it must speed up its national defense power to protect the legitimate interests of Chinese people.”

Broader ambitions are also driving China’s defense budgets. Xi Jinping has outlined important goals for China in the next few decades as part of his Chinese Dream. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is all set to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2021, by which time China hopes to have a “moderately well-off society.” The second major centenary goal is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China itself and China hopes to be “a completely developed country” by 2049.

Along with these broad goals, China has specified areas for focus like military drones, space, artificial intelligence, and overall development in the strategic domain. The Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation could see a lot more emphasis in the coming years with higher spending on each of these high-tech and defense arena. But China – and Chinese analysts – should take greater cognizance of the concerns around the region.

China’s 2018 Military Budget: New Numbers, Old Worries, my article in The Diplomat

I am beginning to slow down in updating my blog but I am trying to keep up. I wrote on China's defence spending in my second essay in March for the Diplomat. The essay, "China’s 2018 Military Budget: New Numbers, Old Worries," argued that Beijing’s growing might continues to stoke regional anxieties.

On Monday, China announced that its defense expenditure in 2018 would be over 1.1 trillion yuan ($174.5 billion). In a speech, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said, “Faced with profound changes in the national security environment, we must … firmly uphold the guiding position of Xi Jinping’s thinking on strengthening the armed forces as we develop national defense and the armed forces.” He added that China will advance “all aspects of military training and war preparedness, and firmly and resolvedly safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests.”

This year’s defense budget marks an increase of 8.1 percent from last year. This is slightly more than 7 percent hike seen in 2017, but possibly the largest spending in the last three years.

This appears to be part of a wider trend where China, after the decade-long double-digit increases in its defense spending, now seems to be settling down for high single-digit hikes. Earlier, China’s defense budget increase rate was 10.7 percent in 2013, 12.2 percent in 2014, 10.1 percent in 2015 and began to come down to single digit growth rate from 2016 onward with 7.6 percent in 2016.

China has justified its defense budget by arguing that its defense spending is less than 1.5 percent of its GDP, but that argument is not going to go down well with its neighbors. Given the size of China’s economy, its defense spending in absolute terms is quite high.

For the full essay, click here.



Chinese experts have suggested that what China does with its defense spending is quite normal and standard given its ambitions. Guo Xiaobing, the deputy director and research professor at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), outlines a range of threats that China’s military will have to counter including “protection of maritime tights,” counterterrorism, disaster relief operations, international peacekeeping, and “escorting in the Gulf of Aden.” Guo also argues that China is transparent about its military expenditure, referring to the report of the 19th National Congress of Communist Party of China which identifies the military goals of China.

While this may all sound reasonable to Beijing, China’s neighbors, particularly Japan, Taiwan, India, and Vietnam, will have many concerns about the impact of such defense spending on the military balance in the region. They worry that China’s increasing military might may make it even more prone to aggressive moves in the region.

The recent signs are not comforting for some of these regional states, including countries such as South Korea that maintain friendlier ties with Beijing relative to some of China’s other neighbors. To take just one example, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff recently reported that a Chinese military spy plane, a Y-9, crossed into South Korea’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) without warning last week, one of several such crossings into the Korean ADIZ in recent months.

This is not an isolated incident. It comes on top of other developments including China’s actions in South China Sea over the last few years which suggest that Beijing is changing the status quo in a way that raises questions about its long term objectives. Similar strategies have played out in the East China Sea as well, though with less success.

Chinese state media, for its part, has unsurprisingly continued to rebut such concerns. For instance, China Daily has asserted that “accusations of China’s rising assertiveness in the East and South China seas… is a denial of the truth, as China is merely trying to stand up for itself and its rights.”

Among China’s neighbors Japan in particular, has raised the lack of transparency as a major problem in China’s military spending. Reacting to the increase in military spending, Yoichi Shimada, professor at Fukui Prefectural University, said that “it is an open secret that China’s military spending is far bigger than their government will ever admit.” He added that in addition to the quantum of funding, it is the increasing sophistication of the Chinese military that is alarming.

The United States has also raised similar concerns about the non-transparent nature of China’s military spending. Vice Adm. Phillip Sawyer, commander of the Asia-based U.S. Seventh Fleet, referred to the lack of transparency as an issue that causes angst in the region which “is potentially disruptive to security and stability and the free flow of commerce and trade.”

Though it is unlikely that there will be much of an arms race between China and its neighbors – for most, China is already too large to compete with anyway – anxieties around Beijing’s defense spending can exacerbate security dilemmas and generate behavior that could leave the region less peaceful and prosperous than it could otherwise be. Especially worrying in this respect is the fact that Beijing at times seems far too quick to dismiss the concerns of its neighbors rather than listening and attempting to allay them.

All this suggests that even as we keep getting new numbers around what China spends on its military, the old concerns around what Beijing does with its rising capabilities are unlikely to go away anytime soon.