What's new

China spends 1.4% of GDP on defense

China does scare me somewhat. if the USSR had 1.3 billion people, they'd be a much bigger economy than the US and would've been militarily far superior.

China can genuinely challenge the US, unless of course US starts allowing in smart people in by the millions :)

Thats the only way for the US to maintain its military and technology edge forever. Get the millions of smart people from other countries :)
 
.
Again ignorence about the budgetary system in a democracy has prompted you to make an statement like that. The office of the CAG in India not only watches the spent by the Govt of India but also pointes out errors by the government, if any. Based on which the officials incharge can be taken to task or the government penalised.

Futhermore any India citizen can ask the government any question about any matter and the government has to answer within 30 days. If not they are penalised by the courts. Can you as a matter of fact ask Hu Jintao how much money is spent on paying the electricity bills of his house? Certainly not, for if you dared the cops would be paying you a visit. Where as in India i can ask any such question withought any fear of retribution or imprisonment Now you decide who has more financial powers an Indian citizen or a Chinese citizen??

or you still want stick with the lame illusion theory!!??

Just what we need... another indian troll who thinks he knows better.

Given Indian bureaucracy, ie License Raj, unions, entitled government worker, the boondoggles of Indian arms procurements, etc, etc, etc, I can't believe you can say that India spends its money better.



Transparency International corruption rankings

Malaysia 56

China 79

India 84


Thailand 84

Mexico 89

Indonesia 111

Vietnam 120

Philipines 139

Laos and Cambodia 158
 
Last edited:
.
Just what we need... another indian troll who thinks he knows better.

What ticked you off. My staright question about Hu or the lack of accountability of your government??

Given Indian bureaucracy, ie License Raj, unions, entitled government worker, the boondoggles of Indian arms procurements, etc, etc, etc, I can't believe you can say that India spends its money better..

Wake up this is not 1990, licence raj & red tape are long gone, hate to shatter you illusions though.

dude the allegations you level have been brought to light by the free Indian press. Free the press in China and see how many skeletons tumble out of the closet, India will simply fade in comparison.

Even with restrictions there is lot of hoopla about corruption in China, the womanising by Chinese officials and the landsharks and real estate developers pushing poor farmers out of their property in colloberation with local officials, currupt judges, i could go on and on...



Transparency International corruption rankings

Malaysia 56

China 79

India 84


Thailand 84

Mexico 89

Indonesia 111

Vietnam 120

Philipines 139

Laos and Cambodia 158

Pls provide a link for the above rankings.

Look at the discussion carefully. When was it about corruption?? I was talking about transperency and accountability. You want to talk about corruption open another thread. I dont see you countering me on the points raised or do you think that you are on weak ground.
 
Last edited:
.
Again ignorence about the budgetary system in a democracy has prompted you to make an statement like that. The office of the CAG in India not only watches the spent by the Govt of India but also pointes out errors by the government, if any. Based on which the officials incharge can be taken to task or the government penalised.

Futhermore any India citizen can ask the government any question about any matter and the government has to answer within 30 days. If not they are penalised by the courts. Can you as a matter of fact ask Hu Jintao how much money is spent on paying the electricity bills of his house? Certainly not, for if you dared the cops would be paying you a visit. Where as in India i can ask any such question withought any fear of retribution or imprisonment Now you decide who has more financial powers an Indian citizen or a Chinese citizen??

or you still want stick with the lame illusion theory!!??

As a matter of fact we can, because not long ago a new rule was taken in effects that all government officials in China are required to disclose their assets.
New Anti-corruption Asset Disclosure Rule | China Hearsay

Anyways, back to the topic of budget transparency. Just let me ask you a question, do you know what the India government budget report is about? Let's forget about India here for a second, take US for an example. How many people in US will ever read the budget report, let alone the people who will understand it. Do you know how many pages it has? The entire file size is 34.7M in zip format using .pdf. I will give you a link to it, if you can finish reading it line by line and understand what it says, then you must be very educated in the matters of US politics and finance.

US entire FY11 Budget

After that let's assume that you are an US citzen and you have a problem with how the budget allocates its resource. Well, can you call your president? The best you can do is to find your local congressional representatives in your district if you are lucky enough to be granted audience and make a complain about it. The story will end just right here after your complaining, because the representive will vote accordingly with what the party leader tells him to vote on this budget whether it is yes or no. The each allocation of funds in the budget are proportional distributed by whoever lobby the hardest. Also alot of its spendings in the budget are compromises of partisan politics.

So you are powerless in the end, however you can still go to bed with the imagination that you have a saying in the budget process.
Bismarck said "Je weniger die Leute darüber wissen, wie Würste und Gesetze gemacht werden, desto besser schlafen sie nachts. "(The less the people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they sleep in the night.) In this case budget too, since they are made by the same people.

Pls provide a link for the above rankings.

Look at the discussion carefully. When was it about corruption?? I was talking about transperency and accountability. You want to talk about corruption open another thread. I dont see you countering me on the points raised or do you think that you are on weak ground.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table

Point here is a country's politic is corrupted because its politicians are corrupted, not because of its system or transparency in the political process.
 
Last edited:
. .
Look at the discussion carefully. When was it about corruption?? I was talking about transperency and accountability. You want to talk about corruption open another thread. I dont see you countering me on the points raised or do you think that you are on weak ground.

What are you talking about? Bad transparency and accountability is inherently linked to corruption. You just shot yourself in the foot
 
.
Under democracy, people only have the illusion that they have the control of how their money is spent by the government. In reality government budget is controlled by those special interests groups and corporates that also control the congress or parliament.

You need to know little more about India and its system.

The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI) is a law enacted by the Parliament of India "to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens." The Act applies to all States and Union Territories of India, except the State of Jammu and Kashmir - which is covered under a State-level law. Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen (excluding the citizens within J&K) may request information from a "public authority" (a body of Government or "instrumentality of State") which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerise their records for wide dissemination and to proactively publish certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally.

Right to Information Act (India)
 
. .
Knowing something is totally different than controlling something as I have explained in one post.

I think you totally downplayed the 'Right to Information Act'. As per this act you can ask any document/file from govt office by a written request to verify whether any malfunction has happened to that particular interested area. So it helps to you take action against that problem if it cross the fundamental rights of an individual.
 
.
I think you totally downplayed the 'Right to Information Act'. As per this act you can ask any document/file from govt office by a written request to verify whether any malfunction has happened to that particular interested area. So it helps to you take action against that problem if it cross the fundamental rights of an individual.

I think you totally overestimated the importance of information regarding the process of budget per se. Finish reading the US 2011 budget report first then we will discuss. Also please cross reference it with varies data from other bureaus or agencies that the budget is involved in for any discrepancy.
 
Last edited:
.
When it comes to China i dont think that the Chineese leaders need to bother with even statistics. Statistics comes into play to manipulate a result in a more open environment, where people have access to the numbers but are too lazy to bother to analyzise as to how an inference based on these has been reached at.

With China its a more simple affair just publish the number which catches your fancy and the people have no choice but to believe it. End of story.

yes u r right in the case of china...u can't expect "Right to Information act" in china. game of statistics is only for those country where information is available to every one just like india.
 
.
yes u r right in the case of china...u can't expect "Right to Information act" in china. game of statistics is only for those country where information is available to every one just like india.

And yet, it seems that Indian officials are more corrupted than Chinese ones. I wonder how that happens.
 
.
I think you totally overestimated the importance of information regarding the process of budget per se. Finish reading the US 2011 budget report first then we will discuss. Also please cross reference it with varies data from other bureaus or agencies that the budget is involved in for any discrepancy.

Send me a link to Chinese defense budget. That will be better for a comparison.
 
. . .
Back
Top Bottom