Are tensions high in Asia? It certainly appears so. Over the
last few months, North Korea has tested missiles and threatened the United
States with nuclear war. China spars regularly with Japan over ownership of a
group of disputed islands, and with several Southeast Asian countries over
other sparsely inhabited rocks in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, the United
States is in the midst of a well-publicized "pivot" to East Asia, and
continues to beef up its military deployments to the region.
Yet as of 2012, military expenditures in East and Southeast
Asia are at the lowest they've been in 25 years -- and very likely the lowest
they've been in 50 years (although data before 1988 is questionable). While
it's too early to factor in recent tensions, as China's rise has reshaped the
region over the past two decades, East and Southeast Asian states don't seem to
have reacted by building up their own militaries. If there's an arms race in
the region, it's a contest with just one participant: China.
Military expenditures reflect states' threat perceptions,
and reveal how they are planning for both immediate and long-term
contingencies. In times of external threat, military priorities take precedence
over domestic ones, like social and economic services; in times of relative
peace, countries devote a greater share of their economy to domestic
priorities. The best way to measure military expenditures is as a percentage of
total GDP, because this reflects how much a country could potentially spend. In
1988, as the Cold War was
winding down, the six major Southeast Asian states spent an average of almost
3.5 percent of GDP on military expenditures. (All data comes from the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute, the most dependable source for worldwide military data,
which began publishing its global military figures in 1988.)
By 2012, that number had dropped to less than 2 percent of
GDP. Vietnam, despite current tensions with China over maritime issues, has
reduced its military expenditures most dramatically, to 2.4 percent in 2012,
down from 7.1 percent of GDP in 1988. Back then, an impoverished China was
actively involved with insurgencies in Burma and Thailand; and U.S.-Soviet
competition threatened the stability of the entire region. Singapore,
Indonesia, and Malaysia had only recently settled border disputes, while
Vietnam was still recovering from wars it fought against the United States and
China. Now, only North Korea and Taiwan fear for their survival -- almost every
other state is more stable and prosperous than it has ever been. (Taiwan's military spending dropped
from 5.3 of GDP in 1988 to 2.3
percent in 2012; there are no good statistics on North Korean military
spending.)
Even in 1995, after the Soviet Union's collapse and before
the Asian Financial Crisis, average military spending was 2.5 percent of GDP.
The drop is not a worldwide phenomenon: Military expenditures in Latin America,
for example, hovered around 2 percent of GDP over the last two decades.
(European spending dropped from 2.9 percent of GDP in 1988, to 1.7 percent in
2012.)
The major exception is China. Beijing's defense
expenditures, measured in 2011 dollars, grew from $18 billion in 1989 to $157
billion by 2012, an increase of over 750 percent. Surprisingly, no East or
Southeast Asian countries responded with similar increases in spending.
Japanese defense expenditures, constrained by a pacifist constitution, rose
from $46 billion in 1988 to $59 billion in 2012, an increase of just 29
percent. South Korea went from $14.4 billion in 1988 to $31 billion in 2012, a
relatively small increase of 118 percent, or 4.7 percent a year.
By David Kang, Foreign Policy
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