Top Ten

[Owais]

Thats the official figure provided by Beijing, in reality its more than double that figure and indeed close to $75 billion.

Why they are hiding their defence budget? do they have fear?

 

[Neo]

Why they are hiding their defence budget? do they have fear?

I think the Colonel can answer that better than anyone, he's the expert in house.

 

[Officer of Engineers]

The CCP has different priorities for different budgets. Research and Development belongs in the Science budgets, not military. Pensions belong in the civil service budget, not the military. The PLA's official budget is what they use everyday and their capital purchases.

In order to have any correlation with Western budgets, the West estimates what's the Chinese equivlents.

 

[Neo]

Thank you Colonel, that clarifies a lot!

One more question:
The Yuan is underrated and since the budget is published in local currency, can we conclude that the actual figures might be 25-40% higher than the offical ones?

 

[MrConcerned]

I of course acede to your experience, Colonel.

 

[Officer of Engineers]

Thank you Colonel, that clarifies a lot!

One more question:
The Yuan is underrated and since the budget is published in local currency, can we conclude that the actual figures might be 25-40% higher than the offical ones?

All the estimated figures are published in $US and the various estimates uses PPP and capital costs. So, take whatever figures that is stated as already factored in whatever they want to factor in.

 

[sigatoka]

One more question:
The Yuan is underrated and since the budget is published in local currency, can we conclude that the actual figures might be 25-40% higher than the offical ones?

Why do you say its under-rated? The Chinese Central banks while it buys billions of U.S. treasury bonds is not enough to depress the Yuan's value by more than 10% (It simply is not a big enough player compared to the market).

I have no idea where you get the 25-40 figures from, but id be curious to know.

 

[Officer of Engineers]

I of course acede to your experience, Colonel.

No need. No one cannot know everything. We all establish a baseline and then move on from there ... and then modify our positions as new information become available.

The truth is that the Iran-Iraq War saw 3 shifts in conventional superiority - from Irag to Iran and then back to Iraq. The Iraqis started off superior by taking Iranian territory and after 3-5 years of war, the Iranians went on the offensive and drove to the gates of Basra. In the last stages of that war, the Iraqis regained superiority and drove the Iranians from Iraqi territory.

However, that did not mean that Saddam was ready to march to Tehran. Everybody was tired of war by then and Iraq was offering pre-war borders ... and Iran accepted.

As for the PLA, well, I have to say unless you're a PLA watcher, the subtitlties would get you.