Dear MEL School’s
Topic Readers,
China splurging on
military as US pulls back
Yet no consensus has
been made as to how much China is spending on its military forces, analysts all
agree that the rising power has been and will be allocating and increasing its
military spending at a faster pace than any other country in the world.
Two factors need
to be considered when such military expenditures are compared with western
countries. The first one is fundamentals of economy such as currency exchange
rate, price index, salaries and labor cost, property price and operation costs.
For example, the cost to employ and deploy hundreds of thousand rank and file soldiers
is significantly different between the U.S. and China. Also, China’s costs for software
used in the entire military organization probably incomparably lower as they
could develop software cheaply or even at free of charge by copying.
The other factor is
geographical and operational challenges. While the U.S. is deploying its forces
nearly all over the waters and places such as the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian
oceans, the Mediterranean and Arctic seas, Europe, Australia and Asia, China’s
main focus is the land borders the Pacific Ocean. Even though the U.S. allocates
60% of its naval resources in the Pacific, China can concentrate its operation
solely in the region.
Enjoy reading and
learning what the present situation is and thinking about what the region’s map
would be like a decade or two from now.
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