China significantly upped its defence spending by over 10%, a rise that will be watched nervously in India. Particularly, since India's own defence budget is constrained not only by decreased funding, but also by a distinct lack of strategic planning.
In Beijing, the new president, Xi Jinping, began his stewardship of the party and country by raising defence budget by 10.7% to 740.6 billion yuan ($119 billion). Last year, China's budget stood at $106 billion.
Indian defence officials say China's actual defence spends are almost 60% higher than their declared official budget. In contrast, while the Indian defence budget was hiked only marginally to Rs 203,672 crore ($37.86 billion), the less reported aspect is that the spend is either underutilized or cut by the finance ministry halfway into the year. For instance, in December, 2012, finance minister P Chidambaram had cut the defence capital outlay by Rs 10,000 crore (almost $2 billion).
Chinese defence expenditure is also spurning a cycle of innovation, increasing employment and improvements in industrial capabilities within China, because of the massive indigenization by Chinese military over the last two decades. Indian military continues to buy almost 70% of its military equipment from abroad, and no noticeable effort is being made to increase indigenization.
However, China will be spending much more on internal security threats, at 769.1 billion yuan, according to China's official figures. India's spend on internal security in the coming fiscal is a paltry Rs 52,264 crore ($ 9.86 billion), showing perhaps a greater sense of confidence among Indians, unlike China, whose massive spends could indicate that the leadership is actually afraid of its people. Beijing has listed a growing number of mass incidents of unrest as being the reason for such large outlays. In 2010, China registered 90,000 such incidents, and has refused to divulge figures for the past couple of years.
In the past two decades, China has carried out a massive reversal of its dependence on imports. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China, which was the largest recipient of arms exports between 2002 and 2006, fell to fourth place in 2007-11. While India has climbed to become the world's largest recipient of arms, accounting for 10% of global arms imports in 2007-11, according to SIPRI. As China steps up its purchases from domestic industries it is set to kick off several technological breakthroughs, nurture a robust R&D culture and power a powerful military-industrial complex.
The worry is India's budgeted defence expenditure is only 1.79% of the projected GDP for 2013-14, much less than the 3% being demanded by the armed forces and strategic experts for years to ensure requisite deterrence against both China and Pakistan. In fact, it's even worse than the 1.9% figure of 2012-13.
India's defence budget of Rs 203,672 crore ($37.86 billion) is a 5.3% jump over last year's allocation of Rs 193,408 crore and a 14% hike over the revised estimate of Rs 178,504 crore. India also spends more on paying salaries and on day-to-day costs than on actually procuring new weapons. Such expenditure stands at Rs 116,931 crore, surpassing capital expenditure at Rs 86,741 crore, reflecting a poor "teeth-to-tail'' ratio.
A military expert said, "Exactly a year ago, the then Army chief General V K Singh warned of huge operational gaps in war-fighting capabilities...the situation remains the same."
In Beijing, the new president, Xi Jinping, began his stewardship of the party and country by raising defence budget by 10.7% to 740.6 billion yuan ($119 billion). Last year, China's budget stood at $106 billion.
Indian defence officials say China's actual defence spends are almost 60% higher than their declared official budget. In contrast, while the Indian defence budget was hiked only marginally to Rs 203,672 crore ($37.86 billion), the less reported aspect is that the spend is either underutilized or cut by the finance ministry halfway into the year. For instance, in December, 2012, finance minister P Chidambaram had cut the defence capital outlay by Rs 10,000 crore (almost $2 billion).
Chinese defence expenditure is also spurning a cycle of innovation, increasing employment and improvements in industrial capabilities within China, because of the massive indigenization by Chinese military over the last two decades. Indian military continues to buy almost 70% of its military equipment from abroad, and no noticeable effort is being made to increase indigenization.
However, China will be spending much more on internal security threats, at 769.1 billion yuan, according to China's official figures. India's spend on internal security in the coming fiscal is a paltry Rs 52,264 crore ($ 9.86 billion), showing perhaps a greater sense of confidence among Indians, unlike China, whose massive spends could indicate that the leadership is actually afraid of its people. Beijing has listed a growing number of mass incidents of unrest as being the reason for such large outlays. In 2010, China registered 90,000 such incidents, and has refused to divulge figures for the past couple of years.
In the past two decades, China has carried out a massive reversal of its dependence on imports. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China, which was the largest recipient of arms exports between 2002 and 2006, fell to fourth place in 2007-11. While India has climbed to become the world's largest recipient of arms, accounting for 10% of global arms imports in 2007-11, according to SIPRI. As China steps up its purchases from domestic industries it is set to kick off several technological breakthroughs, nurture a robust R&D culture and power a powerful military-industrial complex.
The worry is India's budgeted defence expenditure is only 1.79% of the projected GDP for 2013-14, much less than the 3% being demanded by the armed forces and strategic experts for years to ensure requisite deterrence against both China and Pakistan. In fact, it's even worse than the 1.9% figure of 2012-13.
India's defence budget of Rs 203,672 crore ($37.86 billion) is a 5.3% jump over last year's allocation of Rs 193,408 crore and a 14% hike over the revised estimate of Rs 178,504 crore. India also spends more on paying salaries and on day-to-day costs than on actually procuring new weapons. Such expenditure stands at Rs 116,931 crore, surpassing capital expenditure at Rs 86,741 crore, reflecting a poor "teeth-to-tail'' ratio.
A military expert said, "Exactly a year ago, the then Army chief General V K Singh warned of huge operational gaps in war-fighting capabilities...the situation remains the same."
China on Tuesday hiked its defence budget by 10.7 per cent to USD 115.7 billion well above this year's Indian defence spending of USD 37.4 billion.
The hike in the defence spending was announced as the Chinese legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC) opened its annual session, which this year also marks the once-in-a-decade power transfer.
As per the budgetary papers placed at the NPC, a sum of 720.168 billion Yuan was allocated for defence, which at the current exchange rate amounted to USD 115.7 billion.
The newly elected leader Xi Jinping and his fellow leaders would formally take over power from old guard headed by President Hu Jintao in the course of next ten days.
The budget proposals were announced by the outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao who presented a lengthy work report on the decade old achievements of his government.
The focus was mainly on the defence budget as China had officially allocated USD 106.4 billion last year making it one of the top defence spenders in the world.
The 10 per cent hike this year comes when China is rapidly modernising its armed forces in the back drop of deepening stand off with Japan over the disputed islands as well as differences with several South Asian Countries over the South China Sea.
China has already launched its first aircraft carrier last year as well as several versions of new jet fighters including a stealth fighter bracing to deal with big US military push into Asia pacific
The hike in the defence spending was announced as the Chinese legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC) opened its annual session, which this year also marks the once-in-a-decade power transfer.
As per the budgetary papers placed at the NPC, a sum of 720.168 billion Yuan was allocated for defence, which at the current exchange rate amounted to USD 115.7 billion.
The newly elected leader Xi Jinping and his fellow leaders would formally take over power from old guard headed by President Hu Jintao in the course of next ten days.
The budget proposals were announced by the outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao who presented a lengthy work report on the decade old achievements of his government.
The focus was mainly on the defence budget as China had officially allocated USD 106.4 billion last year making it one of the top defence spenders in the world.
The 10 per cent hike this year comes when China is rapidly modernising its armed forces in the back drop of deepening stand off with Japan over the disputed islands as well as differences with several South Asian Countries over the South China Sea.
China has already launched its first aircraft carrier last year as well as several versions of new jet fighters including a stealth fighter bracing to deal with big US military push into Asia pacific
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