Surprise - China reduced military budget for fiscal year. Of course, they could be lying, status quo assumes they always under report what they spend on the military, some believe by a substantial margin, which would certainly help explain a tendency to underestimate their abilities somewhat. But with all the heightened rhetoric recently being spun by PLA operatives encouraging or even almost demanding an increasingly ambitious or robust foreign policy by China to more properly reflect its relative power and the dangers implied [to them] by American power it seems a little odd or wrong or confusing to see military expenditures come down. Was the rhetoric preemptive compensation for the scale back? Is there a conflict between what the Peoples Party sees as appropriate and what military brass see as appropriate? Is there a conflict of competing factions within the military grousing for attention and consequent power? Is this an accounting trick, where military expenditures are lumped into GDP figures in order to divert attention and preen the books?
I don't know if it says something about my nature or about China's that I don't for a moment believe military spending will actually decline this year.
