Can China Sustain The Arms Race?
By Sonya Bryskine The rapid military expansion of the People’s Republic of China has set off alarm bells in some, and curiosity in others. With the annual increase in the official defence budget hitting double digits for the past decade, the question is: what are China’s motives, but more importantly can it sustain this “arms race”? Historical lessons Lets take the USSR as an example. At the turning point of the Cold War in the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union devoted between 15 and 17 percent of its annual gross national product (GNP) 1 to military spending, according to United States government sources. The figure is astonishingly high for any country’s economic sustainability. The US at the time was only allocating an average of 6 percent of its GNP to defence, exhibiting a much lesser burden on its economy. Even during the Vietnam War, its military spending did not exceed 10 percent, according to Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2005. GlobalSecurity
