China to announce biggest military budget increase in nearly a decade as Asian arms race heats up

[Viet]

Of course it was a proxy war. No wonder human race keep making same mistake because some of them never learn from the history.

Keep talking to yourself, keep shouting into the mirror. Don't care about a clown.

 

[Lure]

Xi failed on economic front so the other option is to create a sense of perceived threat among Chinese to bring about legitimacy of the government. So now this war mongering.

On contrary economy is a frontier in this confrontation just like military power projection. CPC has seen worse for decades. Wars, poverty, drought that claimed millions of lives. Yet still CPC is there. No one did even dare to take them down. And now do we really expect CPC will lose legitimacy just because the growth rate has fallen 2 points?

China claiming SCS is not a new thing. In 1974 China actually fought a war with South Vietnam -a US ally- for Paracel Islands. The western media making it a big topic recently doesn't mean China claims SCS recently. The only difference between past and current is the aggressiveness of US towards China. Nothing changed regarding China's attitude. They might even be softer then the past. If Mao had this economic and technological resources I don't even want to imagine what would happen now in SCS.

 

[Viet]

Vietnam is just a pawn like Syria. Anytime China and America can destabilise the country and support various factions e.g democratic/freedom sects against the party. If Vietnam behaves itself then nothing will happen, if they do not maybe China will decide to rule Vietnam for another 1000years. Don't act like u are anything more than an Iraq or am Afghanistan. Your a pawn who can be sacrificed at any time so do not talk like you call the shots boy

I give you a valuable advise: if you are desperate, don´t pretend to be God, because you are not, just jump off the window and end your useless life. Pls don´t bother us by spewing your nonsense here. Why don´t you replace the word VN by CN? because the latter will be a bigger pawn.

who is pawn?

Look, just 3 weeks ago, VN government called on the US for "more efficient actions" in the SC Sea. and now the US sends in aircraft carrier, cruisers and more destroyers. so it is wise for China not to escalate the dispute further.

Vietnam PM wants stronger U.S. role in South China Sea | Reuters

 

[Tiqiu]

I give you a valuable advise: if you are desperate, don´t pretend to be God, because you are not, just jump off the window and end your useless life. Pls don´t bother us by spewing your nonsense here. Why don´t you replace the word VN by CN? because the latter will be a bigger pawn.

who is pawn?

Look, just 3 weeks ago, VN government called on the US for "more efficient actions" in the SC Sea. and now the US sends in aircraft carrier, cruisers and more destroyers. so it is wise for China not to escalate the dispute further.

Vietnam PM wants stronger U.S. role in South China Sea | Reuters

Guess what, you gonna not like this. that Dung in the picture you people at exile were so rooted at already went back to the rice field and no more. Now you have a leader who is "a mandarin at his core”. The Vietcong were smarter than you guys then, and are smarter than you guys now.

The End of Vietnam's Pivot to America? | The National Interest
The End of Vietnam's Pivot to America?

New leadership could threaten a nascent strategic alliance.

Matthew Pennekamp
March 4, 2016

Between the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the restoration of formal diplomatic relations in 1995, there elapsed two decades of simmering resentment between the United States and Vietnam, rooted in the mutual depravity of war. But time heals all wounds—or at least that is how the old adage goes. Over the last two decades, Vietnam’s leadership, weighing the threat posed by China, has decided to play the long game of counterbalancing Beijing’s ascendancy by edging closer to Washington. From cosmetic niceties, such as the famous meeting between Robert McNamara and General Vo Nguyen Giap in 1997, to the high politics of joint naval exercises two years ago and the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (which includes the United States and Vietnam to the exclusion of China), the vector of Vietnamese geopolitics has been largely clear.

But domestic intrigue in Hanoi, which was only resolved between Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and the Communist Party of Vietnam’s (CPV) General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong earlier this year, might ultimately harm this modus vivendi. The game of musical chairs that broke out at the CPV’s Twelfth National Congress between the standard-bearers of two political camps, decidedly at odds with one another, threatens to leave the United States without a seat.

Prime Minister Dung has pursued economically liberal policies, reminiscent of those his near-namesake Deng Xiaoping implemented in China in the 1980s. Under his stewardship, Vietnam joined the WTO in 2006, foreign investment increased to a record level (alongside annual growth of 7 percent) and the nation’s somewhat war-torn infrastructure received a much-needed injection of stimulus funding in order to improve the attendant business climate. Even that universally known symbol of capitalistic incursion, the golden arches of McDonald’s, has found its way to Vietnam’s shores.

Dovetailing with Dung’s affinity for market reform is a pro-Americanism made all the more unlikely by his past life as a fourteen-year-old Viet Cong guerilla. Yet as recently as February 16, and in no less American a locale than Sunnylands, California, he called for “the United States [to] have a stronger voice and more practical and more efficient actions” in the South China Sea—a sentiment that does not diverge wildly from any of his previous statements on the issue.

In a comparatively different corner stands General Secretary Trong, whose feelings toward Dung’s reform agenda are best described as begrudging. Characterized by the scholar Alexander Vuving as “a mandarin at his core,” the General Secretary’s resume—studies in Marxist theory in Soviet-era Moscow, and head of the CPV’s Theoretical Council in charge of doctrine—bears out the assessment. At the same time, it also makes someone of Trong’s stripe far more wary of fast-paced change at the expense of communist orthodoxy. As one learned commentator explained, “Some blame him for a lack of reform, but as party chief his priority would be to maintain the party's rule. If reforms are too extensive or too rapid, they could destabilize the party.”

By extension, this same frame of mind also applies to how Trong views the rise of China. More likely to reserve his suspicion for a nation with an unapologetic capitalist bent like the United States than one still technically espousing the Marxist-Leninist line (although China’s communist bona fides are in serious doubt these days), Trong has repeatedly placed his thumb on Vietnam’s foreign-policy scales whenever he felt they weighed too much in America’s favor. Recently, this manifested itself in his organization of a military counterprotest on January 2 to refute the impression left by anti-China demonstrations over the past months.

Dung began maneuvering in the last couple of months to move up a rung on the ladder of leadership and oust Trong from the general secretaryship. Trong, for his part, had already determined to retain his post for the next two years, in order to be in the advantageous position of selecting a more permanent successor. The two leaders, it is worth mentioning, could well be described as men in a hurry; as both are over the age of sixty-five, the mandatory age of retirement from the CPV’s Central Committee (both received special dispensations from the party to contest the latest cycle), this showdown was set to be both men’s final display of political acrobatics.


Melodrama quickly turned into anticlimax when Dung, despite his appeals to Vietnamese nationalism, found that he did not have the support in either of the parallel state and party hierarchies to usurp Trong, duly dropping his clandestine bid. But Trong’s victory on January 27 goes far beyond having evicted his chief rival from the corridors of power. The 175-member Central Committee, charged with filling most powerful positions, saw fit to award the four key offices to which Vietnamese politicos can hope to ascend—general secretary, premier, president, and chairman of the National Assembly—to either Trong’s acolytes or Trong himself.

Thus, for the United States, the cause for concern is not so much that Dung did not ascend to the general secretaryship (though that would have been a boon for Washington), but rather the power vacuum in the premiership itself. In particular, his successor come May, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, is a man who has yet to take a firm stance on the Chimerica duopoly. Given that his position, unlike that of the general secretary, will involve more direct access to the organs of government rather than CPV direction-setting, where he eventually lands on the issue could spell either clear skies or turbulence ahead for the vaunted American “pivot” toward Asia.

On contrary economy is a frontier in this confrontation just like military power projection. CPC has seen worse for decades. Wars, poverty, drought that claimed millions of lives. Yet still CPC is there. No one did even dare to take them down. And now do we really expect CPC will lose legitimacy just because the growth rate has fallen 2 points?

China claiming SCS is not a new thing. In 1974 China actually fought a war with South Vietnam -a US ally- for Paracel Islands. The western media making it a big topic recently doesn't mean China claims SCS recently. The only difference between past and current is the aggressiveness of US towards China. Nothing changed regarding China's attitude. They might even be softer then the past. If Mao had this economic and technological resources I don't even want to imagine what would happen now in SCS.

I must admit you really know a lot about China. Please also post more about your country so we can get some direct perspectives other than from the medias.

 

[sweetgrape]

I give you a valuable advise: if you are desperate, don´t pretend to be God, because you are not, just jump off the window and end your useless life. Pls don´t bother us by spewing your nonsense here. Why don´t you replace the word VN by CN? because the latter will be a bigger pawn.

who is pawn?

Look, just 3 weeks ago, VN government called on the US for "more efficient actions" in the SC Sea. and now the US sends in aircraft carrier, cruisers and more destroyers. so it is wise for China not to escalate the dispute further.

Vietnam PM wants stronger U.S. role in South China Sea | Reuters

Your confidence and smug shock me,

Why not escalate the dispute later? don't you find, it become more interesting, I am very interesting next time, whether you can call on Alien for more efficient actions, I have not seen the UFO, have you? well, so exciting

 

[Viet]

Guess what, you gonna not like this. that Dung in the picture you people at exile were so rooted at already went back to the rice field and no more. Now you have a leader who is "a mandarin at his core”. The Vietcong were smarter than you guys then, and are smarter than you guys now.

The End of Vietnam's Pivot to America? | The National Interest
The End of Vietnam's Pivot to America?

New leadership could threaten a nascent strategic alliance.

Matthew Pennekamp
March 4, 2016

Between the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the restoration of formal diplomatic relations in 1995, there elapsed two decades of simmering resentment between the United States and Vietnam, rooted in the mutual depravity of war. But time heals all wounds—or at least that is how the old adage goes. Over the last two decades, Vietnam’s leadership, weighing the threat posed by China, has decided to play the long game of counterbalancing Beijing’s ascendancy by edging closer to Washington. From cosmetic niceties, such as the famous meeting between Robert McNamara and General Vo Nguyen Giap in 1997, to the high politics of joint naval exercises two years ago and the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (which includes the United States and Vietnam to the exclusion of China), the vector of Vietnamese geopolitics has been largely clear.

But domestic intrigue in Hanoi, which was only resolved between Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and the Communist Party of Vietnam’s (CPV) General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong earlier this year, might ultimately harm this modus vivendi. The game of musical chairs that broke out at the CPV’s Twelfth National Congress between the standard-bearers of two political camps, decidedly at odds with one another, threatens to leave the United States without a seat.

Prime Minister Dung has pursued economically liberal policies, reminiscent of those his near-namesake Deng Xiaoping implemented in China in the 1980s. Under his stewardship, Vietnam joined the WTO in 2006, foreign investment increased to a record level (alongside annual growth of 7 percent) and the nation’s somewhat war-torn infrastructure received a much-needed injection of stimulus funding in order to improve the attendant business climate. Even that universally known symbol of capitalistic incursion, the golden arches of McDonald’s, has found its way to Vietnam’s shores.

Dovetailing with Dung’s affinity for market reform is a pro-Americanism made all the more unlikely by his past life as a fourteen-year-old Viet Cong guerilla. Yet as recently as February 16, and in no less American a locale than Sunnylands, California, he called for “the United States [to] have a stronger voice and more practical and more efficient actions” in the South China Sea—a sentiment that does not diverge wildly from any of his previous statements on the issue.

In a comparatively different corner stands General Secretary Trong, whose feelings toward Dung’s reform agenda are best described as begrudging. Characterized by the scholar Alexander Vuving as “a mandarin at his core,” the General Secretary’s resume—studies in Marxist theory in Soviet-era Moscow, and head of the CPV’s Theoretical Council in charge of doctrine—bears out the assessment. At the same time, it also makes someone of Trong’s stripe far more wary of fast-paced change at the expense of communist orthodoxy. As one learned commentator explained, “Some blame him for a lack of reform, but as party chief his priority would be to maintain the party's rule. If reforms are too extensive or too rapid, they could destabilize the party.”

By extension, this same frame of mind also applies to how Trong views the rise of China. More likely to reserve his suspicion for a nation with an unapologetic capitalist bent like the United States than one still technically espousing the Marxist-Leninist line (although China’s communist bona fides are in serious doubt these days), Trong has repeatedly placed his thumb on Vietnam’s foreign-policy scales whenever he felt they weighed too much in America’s favor. Recently, this manifested itself in his organization of a military counterprotest on January 2 to refute the impression left by anti-China demonstrations over the past months.

Dung began maneuvering in the last couple of months to move up a rung on the ladder of leadership and oust Trong from the general secretaryship. Trong, for his part, had already determined to retain his post for the next two years, in order to be in the advantageous position of selecting a more permanent successor. The two leaders, it is worth mentioning, could well be described as men in a hurry; as both are over the age of sixty-five, the mandatory age of retirement from the CPV’s Central Committee (both received special dispensations from the party to contest the latest cycle), this showdown was set to be both men’s final display of political acrobatics.


Melodrama quickly turned into anticlimax when Dung, despite his appeals to Vietnamese nationalism, found that he did not have the support in either of the parallel state and party hierarchies to usurp Trong, duly dropping his clandestine bid. But Trong’s victory on January 27 goes far beyond having evicted his chief rival from the corridors of power. The 175-member Central Committee, charged with filling most powerful positions, saw fit to award the four key offices to which Vietnamese politicos can hope to ascend—general secretary, premier, president, and chairman of the National Assembly—to either Trong’s acolytes or Trong himself.

Thus, for the United States, the cause for concern is not so much that Dung did not ascend to the general secretaryship (though that would have been a boon for Washington), but rather the power vacuum in the premiership itself. In particular, his successor come May, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, is a man who has yet to take a firm stance on the Chimerica duopoly. Given that his position, unlike that of the general secretary, will involve more direct access to the organs of government rather than CPV direction-setting, where he eventually lands on the issue could spell either clear skies or turbulence ahead for the vaunted American “pivot” toward Asia.


I must admit you really know a lot about China. Please also post more about your country so we can get some direct perspectives other than from the medias.

Dung and Trong clash over style, not ideology.

Dung is a southerner. he says "you are a clown" if you are clown.
Trong is a northerner. he says "you have a very bad hunour" if you are a clown.

that is the difference between the two´s.

Your confidence and smug shock me,

Why not escalate the dispute later? don't you find, it become more interesting, I am very interesting next time, whether you can call on Alien for more efficient actions, I have not seen the UFO, have you? well, so exciting

smug?

you mean bragging. that is your habbit actually.

 

[sweetgrape]

smug?

you mean bragging. that is your habbit actually.

Hehe, even it is our habbit, so what? we have the ability, we can do it by ourself.
we are not the one that always drag USA in, then bragging how powerful he is, can send a order to USA: now send your carrier here, then USA do so,

Whatever how powerful you are in your mouth, in reallity, you are just chess piece, more pathetic, tend to be don't know, or pretend you are not

 

[UKBengali]

@Chinese-Dragon; @ChineseTiger1986; @j20blackdragon :

Why is China keeping the military budget at a constant low of ~1.4% of GDP?

China needs to eventually have a military that is more powerful than the United States in order
to reach and then safeguard what will become the largest economy in the world by a wide margin.

Yes, China cannot ramp up military expenditure too quickly but it can easily increase it by say 0.1%
of GDP a year up to 2030 where it will reach a sustainable 3% of GDP.

 

[ahtan_china]

I give you a valuable advise: if you are desperate, don´t pretend to be God, because you are not, just jump off the window and end your useless life. Pls don´t bother us by spewing your nonsense here. Why don´t you replace the word VN by CN? because the latter will be a bigger pawn.

who is pawn?

Look, just 3 weeks ago, VN government called on the US for "more efficient actions" in the SC Sea. and now the US sends in aircraft carrier, cruisers and more destroyers. so it is wise for China not to escalate the dispute further.

Vietnam PM wants stronger U.S. role in South China Sea | Reuters

You are confident.
It will be up to your ability if Vietnam don't want to be a pawn.
Do you think Vietnam is able to ask China to stop reclamation?
Do you think Vietnam can patrol SCS independently without USA navy?

 

[Viet]

Hehe, even it is our habbit, so what? we have the ability, we can do it by ourself.
we are not the one that always drag USA in, then bragging how powerful he is, can send a order to USA: now send your carrier here, then USA do so,

Whatever how powerful you are in your mouth, in reallity, you are just chess piece, more pathetic, tend to be don't know, or pretend you are not

Have you ever played chess?

By your ability I guess not, because it requires a lot of thinking. I tell you, a pawn can become queen winning the game.

I flush the rest of your post down the toilet.

 

[sweetgrape]

Have you ever played chess?

By your ability I guess not, because it requires a lot of thinking. I tell you, a pawn can become queen winning the game.

I flush the rest of your post down the toilet.

Hehe, independence come from ignorance and self-deception, you want to be queen? hehe, I alway watch

More and more Vietnamese here become mad and neuropathy, If can't stop, better to help them

 

[Aepsilons]

@Chinese-Dragon; @ChineseTiger1986; @j20blackdragon :

Why is China keeping the military budget at a constant low of ~1.4% of GDP?

China needs to eventually have a military that is more powerful than the United States in order
to reach and then safeguard what will become the largest economy in the world by a wide margin.

Yes, China cannot ramp up military expenditure too quickly but it can easily increase it by say 0.1%
of GDP a year up to 2030 where it will reach a sustainable 3% of GDP.

The CPC adheres to the mandate of incremental, progressive growth. Military growth is adjuvant with economic and demographic growth. So even if her defense expenditure is ~1.2-1.3%, it still is one of the largest in Asia. China is not an interventionist nation and does not have armies and fleets deployed abroad like the United States. Rather, China's home ports and local army commands are bristling to the teeth since her fleets are domestically distributed.

If she chose to deploy her three fleets, she could easily overpower any navy in East and Southeast Asia. Even North Asia. Emphasis is on potential power, akin to potential energy of a spring.

I suppose in case of war the CPC could increase defense spending to 5% of GDP, and would bring it to $550-600 Billion.

China would be , for all intents and purposes, unbeatable in a defensive war. Her armies , alone, would crush any army in her contiguous borders.

Crush is not the right word; extinguish is more the working term.

 

[UKBengali]

The CPC adheres to the mandate of incremental, progressive growth. Military growth is adjuvant with economic and demographic growth. So even if her defense expenditure is ~1.2-1.3%, it still is one of the largest in Asia. China is not an interventionist nation and does not have armies and fleets deployed abroad like the United States. Rather, China's home ports and local army commands are bristling to the teeth since her fleets are domestically distributed.

If she chose to deploy her three fleets, she could easily overpower any navy in East and Southeast Asia. Even North Asia. Emphasis is on potential power, akin to potential energy of a spring.

I suppose in case of war the CPC could increase defense spending to 5% of GDP, and would bring it to $550-600 Billion.

China would be , for all intents and purposes, unbeatable in a defensive war. Her armies , alone, would crush any army in her contiguous borders.

Crush is not the right word; extinguish is more the working term.

True that China is currently unbeatable at home as it can take on any country or group of countries and still defend it's borders.

What China needs to focus on is a huge navy(~US Navy size) with many aircraft carriers and their escorts. China needs to make sure that no nation or group of nations will ever dare interfere with their maritime trade. True that China is spending a lot of resources building roads and railways to connect with rest of Asia but places like Latin American can only be reached by ship.

When you want to make a country of 1.4 billion people rich, then you simply need the most powerful military across the full spectrum.

 

[Viet]

You are confident.
It will be up to your ability if Vietnam don't want to be a pawn.

I believe talking to chinese boys is like talking to a wall.
obviously the chinese worldview is, it consists of pawns and non-pawns. the great chinese firewall does a good job.

Do you think Vietnam is able to ask China to stop reclamation?

no. similar you can´t stop ours.

Do you think Vietnam can patrol SCS independently without USA navy?

where have you been lately?

we control our waters all the times, day and night. without US navy.

now. we ask the US navy to patrol your waters.

 

[Tiqiu]

@Chinese-Dragon; @ChineseTiger1986; @j20blackdragon :

Why is China keeping the military budget at a constant low of ~1.4% of GDP?

China needs to eventually have a military that is more powerful than the United States in order
to reach and then safeguard what will become the largest economy in the world by a wide margin.

Yes, China cannot ramp up military expenditure too quickly but it can easily increase it by say 0.1%
of GDP a year up to 2030 where it will reach a sustainable 3% of GDP.

Actually one PLA delegate to China People's Congress called for defence spending increasing to 2-2.5 per cent based on the fact that us is 4.5, uk/France both are 2.5 up, and china is only 1.5 per cent. Also The security challenge china is facing is a lot worse than France's.