Kyle Mizokami, Why the Chinese Military Is Only a Paper Dragon; Corruption, bad neighbors, inflation, and a demographic time bomb — these are just a few of Beijing's woes. The Week, Sept 24, 2014.
theweek.com/article/index/264774/why-the-chinese-military-is-only-a-paper-dragon
Quote:
* Regarding China’s army: “China has only one tank division. These ground troops are mostly for homeland defense. For power projection outside its borders, China has three airborne divisions, two marine divisions, and three marine brigades. [The implication is is China has no group troops for power projection]
* China is “a country that borders three of the most unstable places in the world — Pakistan, Afghanistan, and North Korea. [On the other hand] After thousands of years of incursions and invasions, China has finally built up strong borders. Beijing is doing a good job of maintaining peace and relative prosperity in a rough, impoverished neighborhood. 'China's land borders have never been more secure than they are today,' M Taylor Fravel, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told War is Boring.
* “China borders 14 countries, tying Russia for the most neighbors. But while many of Russia's neighbors are peaceful — Estonia, Finland, Norway, and Latvia come to mind — China borders Afghanistan, North Korea, Myanmar, and Pakistan. Two of these states have nuclear weapons.
* "China is remarkably lacking in real, dependable allies. In the Pacific alone, the United States can count Japan, Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, and The Philippines as close allies — and maintains cordial relations with others including Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. China's list of allies in the Pacific, on the other hand, is a short one. Russia. Globally, China's allies include Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. All are despotic or near-despotic states, many are unstable and many have long records of human rights abuses. Beijing embraces its worst neighbors in part to keep them in check. This worked with Pakistan, but failed with North Korea. * * * Where China has really failed, however, is in simply getting along with nearby countries [since 2010]. * * * Sometime around 2010, Beijing decided to stop playing nice. * * * Sometime around 2010, Beijing decided to stop playing nice. * * * Whatever the case, China's recent actions have left it largely friendless. Today its most important relationships with other countries are strictly economic in nature. This has obvious implications for China's military posture. While the US Navy can sail across the Pacific and call on practically dozens of ports, China's warships can sail just outside its territorial waters and, other than the Russian port of Vladivostok, have nowhere to go. This places China at an enormous strategic disadvantage. Beijing has no allies to provide bases, share burdens, pool intelligence, or lend moral support.
* "Since 1990, China's defense spending has swelled by at least 10 percent annually, resulting in a tenfold overall budget increase in just 24 years. * * * But the budget boosts aren't nearly as big as they seem. * * * if you take into account inflation, China's real increase in defense spending is actually in the single digits annually — hardly the massive influx of cash that alarmists decry. * * * 'Throughout much of the post-1978 reform era, the real-world effects of China's nominal defense spending have been mitigated heavily by rampant inflation,' wrote Andrew Erickson, a professor at the US Naval War College. In 2008, China's spent 14.9 percent more on defense than it did in 2007. But that 14.9-percent increase coincided with 7.8-percent inflation, resulting in a net military-budget boost of only 7.1 percent. In 2010, defense spending rose 7.8 percent and was devoured by a 6.7-percent inflation rate, for a net gain of just 1.1 percent. Adjusted for inflation, between 2004 and 2014, China's defense spending increased by an average of 8.3 percent in real terms.
* "The paradox of China's military budget is that spending has risen even as defense's share of the economy has dropped. As a percentage of the economy, China's arms spending has actually fallen by a little more than 20 percent [from 2.6% to 2.1%; see next sentence]. Beijing spent 2.6 percent of GDP on defense in 1989. Between 2002 and 2010, it appropriated an average of 2.1 percent. In 2013, China's military budget accounted for just two percent of GDP. * * * Matching US military spending as a percentage of GDP [3.8%; Mr Kyle does not say which year; when US was in wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the ratio was more than 5%] would require China to spend 5.8 percent on internal [Mr Kyle does not say it, but we know China spends more on homeland security than national defense] and external defense. That's just not a realistic prospect. Only three countries devote that much of their economy to their armies — Saudi Arabia, Oman, and South Sudan.
* "'No country can defeat China,' a leading PLA commissar was quoted as saying in Foreign Policy [John Garnaut, Rotting From Within; Investigating the massive corruption of the Chinese military. Foreign Policy, Apr 16, 2012 (blog)]. 'Only our own corruption can destroy us and cause our armed forces to be defeated without fighting.'
* “The PLA possesses 7,580 main battle tanks — more than the US Army. But only 450 of those tanks — the Type 98As and Type 99s — are anywhere near modern, with 125-millimeter guns, composite armor, modern suspension, and advanced fire control systems. All of America's roughly 5,000 M-1 tanks are modern.
* “One of the most visible signs of China's military rise is all the new, locally-designed and -produced hardware. Beijing is building new ships, aircraft, drones and tanks that, on the outside, appear to be matches for Western weapons. But we know very little about China's homemade weaponry. Specifically, we don't know if any of it really works. * * * * * * Beijing realized it would have to develop weaponry all on its own. That's not easy. In all the world, only the United States still has the technology, expertise, and industrial capacity to develop all of its own military hardware. It's very, very expensive. Many of China's 'new' weapons are actually foreign designs that Beijing's state companies have licensed, stolen, or painstakingly reverse-engineered. * * * To be sure, not all of the PLA's new hardware is a knock-off. * * * In many cases [of hardware], we can only guess at the weapon's quality. After all, China has no free press.
* "China is a hobbled giant with many deep, systemic problems. Some of these problems — particularly the technological ones — are solvable. The demographic issue is not. And it's the biggest reason the paper dragon does not pose a major threat to the rest of the world over the long term.
My comment: There is no need to read the rest of this lengthy article, though it is worthy. “War Is Bloring is the title of Mr Mizokami’s blog.
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发表于 10-1-2014 09:44:11
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