China's spends $84 billion more in Defense than reported

[HeliArmy]

Because military secrets goes beyond the materials they keep secret or the new technology they are keeping hidden under the radar, the budget is as well wrong. China reported in 2014 a military spending of $132 billion.

But some organizations just doesn't believe what they said straight away. Transparency International is an organization that watches for corruption on the world. And yesterday, November 4th, they published a report saying China is the responsible of more than 1/3 of the whole world's secret and unaccounted military spending.

After computations from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who used the data from Transparency International, it turns out they found the total China's military spending is of $216 billion, or $84 billion more than accounted.

Military often holds interests in business, and still holds them in hotels and telecoms.

China accounts for more than a third of the world's 'secret' military spending - Business Insider

 

[Scorpion]

China doesn't have the tech to stand against NATO but it has an army of three million people including the reserve, now that you don't want to mess with.

 

[Rowe992]

Well China is only doing what America and Russia does so I don't see the big deal. China has over a billion people and they are always trying to find ways for securing their country against the likes of Russia and the USA.

 

[HeliArmy]

Yes, they have many people and honestly, if they wanted to, they could engage even more people in military. It's less a big deal than doing it in NATO countries where the number of new soldiers can't be that big, given it is a fraction of population. But I don't see why and how it justify the fact they make so much unaccountable spendings. What's the big deal of hiding it, given they already show nothing to the "Congress" (China, Congress, we can laugh), the numbers are always vague when it comes to military in China so no need to lie and hide. That's just weird.

 

[Corzhens]

Well China is only doing what America and Russia does so I don't see the big deal. China has over a billion people and they are always trying to find ways for securing their country against the likes of Russia and the USA.

Yes, that's also what I think of it. But the big spendings for the military is really good in terms of returns since the economy is perking up. Especially when a big part of the money is spent inside (China) then it benefits itself from that. And I also agree that somehow, China is trying to build up something big that it can compete with the big boys in terms of armaments and modern weaponry.

 

[HeliArmy]

Yes, that's also what I think of it. But the big spendings for the military is really good in terms of returns since the economy is perking up. Especially when a big part of the money is spent inside (China) then it benefits itself from that. And I also agree that somehow, China is trying to build up something big that it can compete with the big boys in terms of armaments and modern weaponry.

But here we don't talk especially about the amount China is spending, we talk about the fact China is spending secretly $84 billion. It's not $80. It's a whole part of the military money that is secretly spent under the name of other budgets.

Also, it is told that military owns or have shares in businesses. Why? What's the link? In general, it's the state who have interests in companies to get additional money by investing in successful companies, not military themselves. Why China is doing that? Why these $84 billion is secret? Why can't they reveal a true amount? Other countries feels like to play better the game than that.

 

[vash]

First, the number you read from news media is not accurate. Since China does not report their own military spending accurately, how can any outside source to be more accurate than themselves? Since it is "secret", how do any outside source get the real numbers?

Second, every country has its "secret" military spending. Since every country has some kind of secret military programs such as secretly developing some new weapon systems.
For example, F-117 was a secret until there were too many of them flying around, and there was no way to not let people see them in the sky any more.

Since there are secret projects within military, the fund for these secret projects must be secret too.

On a side note, the buck of the (increased part) of Chinese military spending was due to inflation. In the last 15 years or so, it might seem China's military spending had gone up by 10 folds? The truth is that the inflation in China had gone up by more than 10 folds during the same period.

 

[xTinx]

A great chunk of that $84 billion would have been better off spent rehabilitating their environment. Air pollution has become such a problem in China yet they don't even allocate as much money to address this environmental issue. They're investing more on their "powerful reputation" not knowing that this could very well work against them.

 

[Valois1790]

@xTinx: True, but look at the history of China. They modernized out of the colonial period. A period which didn't end until after WW2 for them. So it's understandable that the CCP is a bit preoccupied with national security and leverage.

Although, I agree, they do need to work on that air pollution. How many of their own people die a year due to complications from that stuff?