China's military spends hundreds of millions of dollars

ON AN AVERAGE DAY in China hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on China’s military. According to the Chinese government, China will spend $45 billion (US$123,287,671 a day) on defense in 2007. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency believes that Chinese spending is significantly higher. The DIA believes that Chinese defense spending is between US$85 billion (US$232,876,712 a day) and US$125 billion (US$342,465,753 a day).

If Pentagon estimates are correct, China has the world’s second largest defense budget. Still its spending is dwarfed by that of the U.S. U.S. spending in 2007 will amount to $606 billion (including $170 billion in war spending). This averages $1,660,273,973 a day or more than four times the DIA's "high" estimate of Chinese expenditure.

Sources:
Peter Spiegel, “Pentagon says China is increasingly influenced by oil,” Los Angeles Times, May 26, 2007.

U.S. Department of Defense, Military Power of the People’s Republic of China, 2007, May 2007.

[Clayton Dube, USC U.S.-China Institute]