People's Liberation Army of China - how to live within your means
Stand in places
China's official military budget is the National Defense section of the state budget. The state budget of the PRC is very similar to the Russian one and also consists of two parts: the budget of the central government and the consolidated budget of local governments.
The “National Defense” section is present in both parts of the PRC state budget. The bulk of official military spending (about 97%) comes from the central government budget, the rest from the consolidated budget of local governments.
In accordance with the classification of items of income and expenditure of the state budget of the People's Republic of China, under the section "National Defense" the budget of the central government finances the maintenance of regular troops of the PLA. This part of the costs includes the allowance of military personnel and wages of civil servants, financing of combat training and logistics support for troops, military R&D, purchases of weapons and military equipment - weapons and military equipment.
In addition to these main expense items, the section takes into account funds for the purchase of weapons and military equipment for reserve troops and people's militia, the construction of military facilities, and also, in part, the implementation of organizational and mobilization measures, including the organization of military conscription, mobilization preparation of industry, mobilization preparation of transport, construction of facilities civil defence.
The budgets of local governments under the section “National Defense” finance combat training and logistics of reserve troops and people’s militia, as well as part of the costs of organizing the conscription of military personnel and mobilization preparation of industry.
Costs – direct and not so
In China, as in other countries, the official military budget reflects only the amount of officially recognized direct military expenditures of the state. Part of the military costs is included in the “civilian” sections of the state budget and represents hidden military expenses.
To indicate the amount of all direct military expenditures of the state, the concept “Total military expenditures” is used, which is understood as the total fund of funds, including the official military budget and military expenditures passing through the “civilian” sections of the state budget.
In relation to China, the task of determining total military expenditures becomes significantly more complicated due to the continued secrecy of financial and economic statistics, especially in the military-economic sphere, as well as the presence of a fairly large volume of hidden financing of military activities.
It is carried out in the “civil” sections of the state budget. In the officially published government budget, military expenditures continue to be presented only by the total amount of China's official military expenditures under the heading "National Defense".
No details are provided for this section. However, an analysis of a number of Chinese regulatory documents and scientific articles in specialized military publications made it possible to reveal the composition and structure of China's military budget. In addition, in recent years, the civilian sections of the state budget have been presented in more detail, which makes it possible to identify military-oriented expenditures in non-military sections with higher reliability.
As a result of the analysis, it was established that the military budget does not represent a significant part of the costs for military R&D, part of the costs for the purchase of weapons and military equipment (in particular, the costs of purchasing weapons and military equipment for imports), capital construction of military facilities, expenses for mobile divisions of the People's Armed Militia (PAM) , pensions for discharged military personnel and some other expenses associated with military construction.
Expenses – civil, but also military
These expenses are included in the civil sections of the state budget, including the sections “Science and Technology”, “Social Security and Employment”, “Law Enforcement”, “Other Expenses”, etc. Thus, under the section “Science and Technology” from the budget The central government funds the National High Technology Research Program (Program 863), 58–60% of which is allocated to military R&D.
In addition, about 30% of the state program of basic research (Program 973) is spent on closed military-oriented research. In general, about 40% of expenditures from the central government budget under the “Science and Technology” section are allocated to military-oriented R&D.
Under the section “Social Security and Employment”, the central budget finances measures to ensure the military-economic supply of troops; maintaining the readiness of troops supply points, military staging points and preparing transport communications for use in the interests of the armed forces; payment of pensions to reserve and retired military personnel; providing benefits to conscripts and their families; employment of military personnel discharged from the armed forces.
Local budgets under this section finance part of the pensions for military personnel, financial provision of benefits for conscripts, a significant part of organizational and mobilization activities related to the conscription and training of reserve military personnel, as well as the construction of military facilities.
A significant part of the expenses going through the “civilian” sections of the state budget can be distributed according to their intended purpose for the maintenance of personnel, logistics of troops, procurement of weapons and military equipment and military R&D. At the same time, these costs are difficult to distribute among types of aircraft.
Information