According to the report of a U.S. think tank, China has been in a Schrödinger state of rising threat and collapse. Enterprise America's new April 29 report, "Keeping Up with the Pacing Threat: Unveiling the True Size of Beijing's Military Spending," once again plays into the U.S. "Best" The characteristics of mathematics show that China's military budget in 2022 is about 711 billion US dollars, which is three times the budget we officially announced, and almost the same as the US military budget in the same year.
Flexible in terms of purchasing power
In 2022, for example, China's publicly announced military spending is $229 billion, while the U.S. military budget (excluding additional spending) is $742 billion, more than three times China's total military budget.
In order not to make themselves appear militaristic, the Americans argued that it was not fair to calculate according to the real exchange rate, and that it should be calculated according to PPP (average purchasing power). This gives full play to the flexibility of the Americans in their choice of rules - another practical application is the calculation of whether the United States chooses the Olympic gold medal table or the medal table - when it is necessary to indicate that the United States is still the largest economy, it emphasizes the use of real exchange rates, and when it emphasizes the need for the United States to increase military spending, it reminds us of PPP,
Of course, there is still some logic in using PPP, after all, military currency must be converted into goods and services in order to show value. In the real world, it should be said that the overvaluation of the dollar is not all a disadvantage for the US military, after all, in terms of imports, the overvaluation of the dollar is a matter of taking advantage. However, in recent years, the US Congress has been hysterical about comprehensive de-risking, and even cameras or screws for military use must be separated from China, and low purchasing power is of course a natural thing.
China's military spending adjusted for purchasing power
Based on the difference between the actual bank PPP and the actual exchange rate of the year, the US Enterprise Research Institute increased the PLA equipment budget from $85 billion to an adjusted $135 billion, and the training and maintenance budget from $76 billion to $121 billion, an increase of nearly 60 percent.
This is understandable, but when calculating personnel costs, the American Enterprise Institute has made even more efforts, comparing the average income of American civil servants with the average income of Chinese civil servants, and came up with a 1:4 ratio, so it directly increased personnel costs by four times to $293 billion.
Hidden expenses added to everything
Even so, these adjustments have only created a new budget of $549 billion, more than double the original $229 billion national defense budget, but only 74 percent of the US Department of Defense's $742 billion budget. This clearly did not reach the concluding goals envisaged by the Americans.
As a result, they began to further excavate China's hidden hidden military spending, including the spending of civilian projects such as the armed police, the coast guard, military academies, scientific research institutions, and space programs, and finally raised China's military spending to $710.6 billion, close to the $742.2 billion of the United States.
Under this operation, the US military spending is no longer a behemoth of a country that ranks first to ninth in the sum of its ranks, but is only on a par with China. Considering the peculiarities of the global deployment of the United States, the community of military industrial interests has an excuse to continue to increase military spending.
I have a better algorithm
In fact, there is no need to be so troublesome, according to the article "From sky-high ashtrays to sky-high bushings, only the most expensive US military has been consistent for 40 years", a Chinese bushing sold for $100 The purchase price of the US Air Force is 90,000 to, and the purchase volume is, 1:9000. When converted, China's military spending is $2,061,000 billion, and there is still a lot of room for improvement in US military spending
The US military used to be a sky-high ashtray