But thank to China and it bully policy of (( The bigger guy take all )), Viet Nam is investing heavily for a modern navy and air force, having new allies in India, Japan & USA and having the weapon embargo lift very soon… Thanks to China bully politic, Viet Nam navy was a small, weak and neglect force with old Soviet-era ships is today a Navy that grow everyday bigger and stronger, it will never beat PLA navy but it will surely give a good fight. So thanks China again and keep bullying it just make all the countries in the Spratly modernizing it forces and looking for allies... Great strategy
The bully policy of China? What a joke! China already shows a surprising "self-control" in military spending. According to SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), China spends only 1.9% of the GDP on military, while the spending rate of Vietnam is 2.3%, Russia 5.4%, USA 3.3%.
(FYI: For the China figure, SIPRI mentioned: The figures are for estimated total military expenditure, including estimates for items not included in the official defence budget. )
Don't try to blame China for the arm race across ASEAN. Just take an example, Thailand is investing heavily on its navy and air force, but who is a bigger concern to Thailand? Vietnam or China?
Vietnam's 2014 GDP was 186.2 billion USD, or 1,160 billion CNY. Shenzhen, a city from Guangdong Province of China, its 2014 GDP was 1,600 billion CNY. See? The GDP of the whole Vietnam is even significantly smaller than one single city of China! Why should we worry about the arm race with Vietnam?
Arm race has its own cost! The more you spending on military, the less you spend on education, infrastructure, health, scientific research, industrialization, etc, which in the long run, will harm the economic development of your country. That said, to invite Vietnam to run an arm race with us is exactly what we want!
For China, we have a strong manufacturing base, therefore the money we spend on new military equipment, the money we spend on J10, J11, J15, J16, J20, 052C, 052D, submarines, Dongfeng-family missiles, different kinds of satellites, etc, will eventually be kept within our own economy circulation. The money we spend on these equipment
- will turn to be the wages of our scientists, engineers and workers, so better talents could be attracted;
- will turn to be the funds for the defense industry to upgrade their manufacturing equipment
- will turn to be the profits of the defense industry so they could invest more on new weapons R&D
- will turn to be the taxes paid to government so the money becomes the government budget again
But for Vietnam, the money you spend on new military equipment unfortunately turns to be
- wages of Russian scientists, engineers and workers
- funds for the Russian defense industry to upgrade their manufacturing equipment
- profits of the Russian defense industry
- taxes paid to Russian government
You must be thrilled to see this! Right?