Everyone knows about China’s arms build-up. Beijing’s defence budget has risen eightfold in 20 years. In that time it has become comfortably the world’s second-biggest spender on the military. In 2012, the country accounted for nearly 10 per cent of global expenditure, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which monitors defence spending. That was more than Russia and the UK combined, although only a quarter of what the supposedly cash-strapped US laid out on its armed forces, according to official figures.
Less understood, however, is the effect China’s military build-up is having on Asia as a whole. In 2012, for the first year in modern times, Asian states spent more on defence than European ones. From India to South Korea and from Vietnam to Malaysia, governments in the region are ramping up defence spending. Even pacifist Japan, which for years has been cutting its defence outlays, has recently started to reverse the trend as it reorients its defence posture towards what it perceives as a growing Chinese threat.
To some extent the build-up in Asia, at a time when the US and Europe are paring military expenditure, is a “natural” shift to a fast-growing region. As economies grow, they are bound to modernise their defence capabilities. Likewise, as China becomes more dependent on imports of raw materials, whether of iron ore from Brazil or oil from Sudan, it is less keen to outsource control of vital sea lanes to the US.