Following US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's visit to China, the West has begun to criticize China again, but this time it has turned the finger to military spending. He said that China has increased its military spending for 29 consecutive years, and slandered it as "China's increased military spending has led to a global arms race."
On April 22, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden released its 2023 global military spending report, which showed that the total global military spending was 2.443 trillion US dollars, an increase of 6.8% year-on-year, not only creating a new high since 2009, but also breaking the historical record. The top four military spenders are the United States, China, Russia, and India. Among them, China's military spending is about 296 billion US dollars, an increase of 6% year-on-year.
Just such a set of mediocre data, but the Western media quickly followed up. Among them, the German media published an article entitled "Think Tank: China's Military Spending Has Increased Year After Year, Driving Neighboring Countries to Increase Defense Budgets." According to the article, "China's modern military development has triggered an increase in defense budgets in the surrounding regions," with Japan's military spending rising by 11 percent to $50.2 billion, and India's military spending increasing by 4.2 percent to $83.6 billion.
In just a few sentences, it can be said that it is full of slots, implying that China's military spending is high, and that China's military spending growth has led to a regional and even global "arms race". First, China is not the world's most expensive military spender, with the United States topping the list, and spending more than the other top 10 countries combined. Taking 2023 data as an example, the White House announced a book figure of $813.3 billion, compared with China's $296 billion military spending in 2023, which is not conspicuous or even slightly low-key. After all, China is the world's second-largest economy and needs a sufficient armed force to protect its interests from being violated.
Second, China's military spending has remained below 2% of GDP for many years. In other words, even if there has been an increase in military spending for 29 consecutive years, it precisely means that the military spending dividend brought about by the continuous improvement of the total economic output. On the other hand, the United States, also taking the data of fiscal year 2023 as an example, compared with the 2022 fiscal year, the increase in US military spending is as high as 14%, far exceeding China's 6%, and the proportion of military spending to GDP is as high as 4.4%!
It should be noted that in 2023, the total military expenditure of the NATO bloc, led by the United States, will reach 1.3 trillion US dollars, accounting for nearly 55% of the total global military spending. Obviously, on the issue of military spending, the Western media and even some countries are playing the trick of "catching a thief by shouting at a thief."
As for the so-called "China's increased military spending has led to a global arms race," it is even more nonsense. First of all, let's talk about the situation in China's surrounding areas, in 2023, the military spending of many countries in China's peripheral areas such as Japan and India has increased significantly, of which Japan's military spending has increased by 11%, second only to the United States among major countries in the world. The Southeast Asian country of the Philippines has a military budget of 282.7 billion pesos in fiscal 2024, an increase of 21.6 percent compared with 2023! Although the latter is not large in terms of total volume, the momentum of military spending growth is very strong.
Japan is the country with the highest quality and largest number of U.S. troops stationed overseas, and has a large number of U.S. air bases. In particular, since Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida came to power, he has not concealed his "hostility" to China, vigorously expanding Japan's armament level, and two Izumo-class helicopter carriers have been transformed into aircraft carriers to carry F35B to achieve aircraft carrier combat capabilities. On the Philippine side, since Marcos Jr. came to power, the situation in the South China Sea has been repeatedly discussed, and it is necessary to be vigilant that the United States has recently deployed a "medium-range firepower" missile system to the Philippines, which is also the first time that the United States has deployed a land-based version of the medium-range missile system overseas since the end of the Cold War, which can not only launch the US military's "Tomahawk" cruise missile, but also launch the US military's latest "Standard 6" long-range air defense missile.
Therefore, whether it is the United States to significantly increase military spending, or the United States to grossly interfere in the situation in China's surrounding areas, it shows the legitimacy and necessity of China's military spending. The deployment of offensive weapons and equipment by the United States in hot spots, which may lead to an imbalance in regional military strength, is the fundamental factor in the rise of military spending in the Asia-Pacific region.
The fundamental reason why the Western media and even some Western countries have smeared China's legitimate military spending is that it has shaken the hegemonic position led by the United States. In recent years, China has made great strides in the development of armaments, and some of its major combat equipment has surpassed that of Britain, France, Germany, and many other old military powers.
The military power is the backing of the power of the great powers, and the improvement of China's comprehensive military strength means that the influence of Western countries in China's peripheral regions is gradually declining. In the current economic environment of the West, the competition cannot be won, and the open robbery and the discovery that it cannot be beaten have naturally become a "thorn in the side and a thorn in the flesh" of some Western countries.
It is worth mentioning that during her previous visit to China, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also threw out the fallacy of "China's overcapacity", which is essentially a true portrayal of the gradual decline of Western countries in the so-called "all-round competition". Western countries only want China to become a cheap commodity production base for the West, and they don't want China to be involved in cutting-edge, high-end manufacturing at all. Now that the Western media are trying to smear China's legitimate military spending, it is clear that when some Western countries want to pick up the bandit culture again, they find that they cannot defeat it. This is the fundamental reason why some Western countries, led by the United States, have gone all out to pour dirty water on China in recent years.