For a long time now, analysts have frightened the world community with the annual growth of Chinese military power. In light of the rapid pace of the Chinese increase in budgetary military spending, the United States has become a constant, if not the only, object for comparison with the PRC.
Over the past two decades, the PRC has been constantly increasing its military budget; over the past ten years, its annual growth has averaged 12%. In addition, every year Beijing pays more and more attention to improving military equipment and technology, gradually reducing the number of military personnel.
China's military spending, which in 2011 amounted to $ 119.8 billion, will increase to $ 238.2 billion by 2015, i.e., it will double. By 2015, the military budget of the PRC will exceed the total defense spending of all APR countries, which the analytical company IHS Global Insight estimates at $ 232.5 billion.
Against this background, it is noted that the United States, which is listed as a potential enemy of the PRC, is cutting military spending. By 2017, the Pentagon plans to reduce defense spending by $ 259 billion, and over the next 10 years - by $ 487 billion. At the same time, the United States, like China, is going to equip the armed forces with the latest technology.
On February 13, Barack Obama requested $ 613.9 billion from Congress for the needs of the Pentagon (for the 2013 fiscal year). And this amount is according to the "cut" program. Hence, it is obvious that China, at least in terms of financing military spending, is still far from the United States.
Meanwhile, in terms of military spending, China ranks second in the world - just after the United States. Over the past two years, China's defense spending has grown at a faster pace than in the past twenty years - by an average of 16.2%. However, Western experts (with their well-known tendency to exaggerate) believe that China is underestimating its military spending by as much as 2-3 times.
It should be noted that the issues of building up the Chinese defense budget - against the backdrop of the American economic crisis and the defense economy in the United States - are of great concern to Washington. The Pentagon has information about the construction of new submarines in the PRC, about the modernization of missile forces and nuclear weapons. On February 13, 2012, Vice President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping began his visit to the United States, during which meetings with the President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense of the United States are scheduled. Along with the growth of Chinese military power, the meetings will also discuss the expansion of the American military presence in the APR.
The growing tension in relations between the United States and China is associated, among other things, with the adoption on January 3, 2012 in Washington of a strategic document: "Sustaining U. S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21 Century Defense". The strategy states that the strengthening of the PRC in the long term can affect the economy and security of the United States. Key points in the adopted US military strategy boil down to reducing the size of the American armed forces while concentrating budgetary resources on the development of satellites and unmanned aircraft. The strategy also assumes a reorientation of resources to the Asia-Pacific region. According to media reports, Washington is going to deploy troops in Australia and send additional warships to Singapore and the Philippines.
It is also known that in August last year, the Pentagon published a report, which reported on the re-equipment of the Chinese army, which poses a threat to neighboring countries. In response, the Chinese authorities demanded that the United States acknowledge that normal defense construction is underway in China. Yang Yujun, a spokesman for the PRC Ministry of Defense, said that in the context of the growth of scientific and technological progress, the modernization of weapons is a completely normal process, and he called the US suspicions "perverted" and "without any foundation." In the same August 2011, China launched the first aircraft carrier (formerly "Varyag"), built in the USSR, bought from Ukraine and modernized. The appearance of "Varyag" was also the reason for the growing tension in relations between China and the United States. In addition, the Pentagon expects the appearance of Chinese aircraft carriers - that is, of their own construction - by 2015. True, on January 9, 2012, the press secretary of the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs Liu Weimin said that Washington was misinterpreting Beijing's intentions to modernize its armed forces and that China is continuing its peaceful development.
In early January 2012, Barack Obama said that budget cuts in the country's military spending would not affect the US's ability to compete with strategic opponents. Quote: “Among the strategic opponents of the United States, Obama singled out Iran and China. Regarding the latter, the president noted that Beijing in the long term will exert an increasing influence on the US economy and military sphere "(source: https://lenta.ru/news/2012/01/05/obama/). Lenta.ru also quoted the head of the Republicans in the parliamentary committee on the armed forces, Buck McKeon, who criticized Obama's program to cut military spending: “The President must understand that the world has always had, has and will have a leader. While America is retreating, someone else is going forward. " Obviously, the first of the "someone" meant exactly China.
As "Military Parity" recently recalled (https://www.militaryparitet.com/perevodnie/data/ic_perevodnie/1940/) with reference to the South Korean newspaper "The Chosunilbo", in 2008 the the power of this country will be equal to that of the United States after 2050, but it will take at least another 20 or 30 years to finally surpass America in the military field. " At the same time, "Military Parity" notes that in recent years China has been rapidly building up armaments for the Air Force and the Navy, and is making progress in space and missile technology.
The latest round of potential confrontation between the United States and China was reported by the Wall Street Journal in its January 4, 2012 issue (article by D. Barnes, N. Hodge, D. Page). The article was about the construction of the American military aircraft carrier of the Navy "Gerald R. Ford", which soon (not earlier than 2015) would be something like a guarantor of US naval superiority in the next half century. But the fact is that Beijing has created a new DF-21D ballistic missile that can hit a moving ship at a distance of about 1,700 miles. This was announced by the Chinese state media. At the same time, American defense experts report that the latest Chinese missile is capable of hitting a target at an angle that is too high for American defenses gliding over the sea surface, and at the same time too low for defenses against ballistic missiles of another class. The angle of destruction of the DF-21D (by the way, not yet deployed to the PRC) is such that even if the means of protection knock down one or two missiles, others will somewhat achieve their goal.
Incidentally, the missile attack on Gerald R. Ford, as noted in the Wall Street Journal article, would endanger nearly five thousand sailors' lives. The aircraft carrier's crew is huge, and the number of potential casualties could exceed all American casualties in Iraq.
In January 2012, Beijing conducted the first tests of the J-20, the newest fighter jet that is undetectable by radars. This fighter allows China to deliver strikes, according to experts, at a very long distance - up to the US military bases in Japan.
Chinese submarines are also of great concern to US military experts. The newest or modernized submarines stay under water for a long time and move silently. There is a known case that happened back in 2006: a Chinese submarine was in the center of a compound of American warships and was not noticed by the Americans until it surfaced.
As a result, the conclusion suggests itself that the military power of China - in comparison with the American one - does not have to be expressed in multibillion-dollar amounts spent on the defense budget. At the present time, we should talk about military-technological rivalry. For example, a new Chinese missile may well force US warships to stay away from Chinese shores. Most likely, they will indeed maintain a reasonable distance.
The American response to the development of the latest missile by the Chinese, perhaps, will be the creation of the above-mentioned unmanned aircraft that could take off from aircraft carriers at sea and stay in the air longer than manned aircraft.
So, there is no need to talk about an open confrontation between China and the United States. It is too early to talk about parity between the military forces of the United States and the PRC. 2050?.. Today, all forecasts for such a distant date seem, perhaps, fantastic. Much more fantastic than the well-known statements of sociologists that in the United States by the middle of the twenty-first century, half of the population will speak Spanish. It is more likely that Beijing is trying with all its might to reduce the influence of the US military power in the Asia-Pacific region while increasing the technological component of its army, rather than Beijing's desire to "catch up and overtake" America militarily. "Catch up and overtake" is a well-known Soviet "doctrine" that has not rational, but emotional roots. And the military-political strategy of the PRC hardly has anything in common with it.
Therefore, now it is not only early, but also unnecessary to make predictions about which of the two powers "outperforms" each other - missiles, aircraft carriers or unmanned aircraft. The goal of the PRC, it seems, is not to achieve military parity and even more obvious superiority over the United States, but to increase its influence in the APR - or, if you prefer, to weaken Washington's influence in this region.
