China Spends Four Times More Than India On Defence: SIPRI

Apr 30, 2019

NEW DELHI: China’s military expenditure is almost four times that of India, with the latter’s armed forces also getting hobbled by a ballooning revenue expenditure and pension bill. The US, of course, is the world’s largest spender on defence, with a military expenditure almost equal to the next eight countries combined.

Latest data released by global think-tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) show the total world military expenditure rose by 2.6% to $1,822 billion in 2018. “The five biggest spenders in 2018 were the US ($649 billion), China ($250 billion), Saudi Arabia ($67.6 billion), India ($66.5 billion) and France ($63.8 billion), which together accounted for 60% of the global military spending,” it said.

Though SIPRI does not go into details, the $66.5 billion (Rs 4.6 lakh crore) military expenditure figure for India includes defence pensions, which amount to one-fourth of the total. Of the remaining, two-thirds go in for the day-to-day running costs, salaries and the like for maintaining the almost 15-lakh strong Indian armed forces.

Overall, this leaves just about one-fourth of the $66.5 billion figure for military modernisation and new weapon systems. So, despite India being the world’s fourth largest defence spender by displacing even Russia ($61.4 billion), its armed forces continue to suffer from critical shortages on several fronts, ranging from fighters and submarines to basic infantry weapons and night-fighting capabilities.

Defence insiders say the Indian armed forces drastically need to slash their non-operational flab and manpower, especially in the 12-lakh strong Army, as well as take to genuine integration in a big way. “There is simply not enough money. The capital allocation for defence already stands at 32-33% of the total central government capital expenditure,” said a senior official.

India also needs to build a strong defence-industrial base, shedding its strategically-vulnerable position of being the world’s largest arms importer. “Exorbitant arms purchases from abroad, without much long-term planning and inter-Service prioritisation, cannot go on forever,” he added.

China, which has registered a defence budget hike for the 24th consecutive year, of course, wants to rival the US on the global stage as well as prevent its military intervention in the Taiwan Strait and the contentious South China Sea.

India, however, has no option but to be ready for its expansionist behaviour both along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control as well as the Indian Ocean Region. But while China has undertaken rapid military modernisation, including manpower cuts in the 2.3-million People’s Liberation Army, while also emerging as the world’s fifth largest arms exporter, India has dragged its feet in both reforming its armed forces and boosting indigenous defence production.

China, for instance, has reorganised the PLA into five theatre commands to bolster its offensive capabilities as well as establish better command-and-control structures. Its western theatre command now handles the entire LAC with India instead of the earlier Chengdu Military Region in the east and the Lanzhou Military Region towards the north. India, in turn, has over half-a-dozen separate Army and IAF commands for the “northern land borders” with China, without any forward movement in establishing theatre commands, as was reported by TOI.

Courtesy: FE online