China’s rapidly growing military spending is paving the way for the country to expand its sphere of influence and challenge the U.S. across the globe, the Pentagon said, in a report laying out challenges facing America as it steps up involvement in Asia.
While U.S. military spending is in decline, China is spending billions of dollars to develop stealth fighters, cyber-weaponry, armed drones and a growing naval fleet that has repeatedly squared off with its Asian neighbors, according to the Defense Department’s annual report to Congress.
China spent more than $145 billion on military programs in 2013, the Pentagon estimated, part of a two-decade-long increase in the country’s military spending. China’s official budget has grown by an average of 9.4% each year since 2004, the report said. U.S. military spending is facing a constrained future as the military prepares to bring 13 years of ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end. “China’s military investments provide it with a growing ability to project power at increasingly longer range,” the report said.
The Pentagon said the Chinese air force is aggressively modernizing “on a scale unprecedented in its history and is rapidly closing the gap with Western air forces across a broad spectrum of capabilities.” China is trying to develop a stealth jet fighter, but the report said the country “faces numerous challenges” in the program, which it isn’t expected to overcome for at least five years.
The report also warns that China continues to use cyber-warfare to target the U.S. in an effort to increase its advantages over America. Cyber is a critical element of China’s military strategy and is becoming an increasingly tense battlefield for the new nations.
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