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The first adjustment we'd need to do is PPP (Purchasing Power Parity). This is an attempt to measure the actual production of an economy, not its market value. Things are cheaper in China. A meal costing $5 in the United States would cost $15 in the United States due to expensive labor and rent. China's PPP economy is already about 20% larger than the U.S. while its nominal economy is 28% smaller.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
This adjustment alone reduces the advantage from 3/1 to 2/1.
To go beyond that, we'd need a sort of "military PPP". I think we can get partway there. The U.S. military is a giant jobs program. The Chinese army probably is too. In the U.S. an E-2 (Private First Class) with less than 2 years experience earns over 50k in pay, housing credits, and food credits. Medical care, pension, and other costs probably double this.
https://militarypay.defense.gov/Calculators/RMC-Calculator/
How much does the Chinese equivalent make? I would be surprised if it was even 20% as much. And right there, we can see that a huge source of the disparity just vanishes into air.
Another factor is that Chinese manufacturing and large projects are much more efficient. Hangzhou started building its metro system in 2012. Today its metro system has 254 stations making it roughly the same size as London and greater than Chicago and DC combined. I've seen numbers thrown around that the Chinese are able to build large infrastructure 10 times cheaper than the U.S. Certainly they are able to do it much much faster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems
So the U.S. spends 3 times as much as China?
Goods costs 60% more in the U.S. (PPP adjustment)
Military salaries are probably 400% higher or more in the U.S.
U.S. large projects could cost 1,000% as much.
It's likely that Chinese military spending already outstrips that of the United States in many ways that matter.
China has a huge corruption problem though (whereas the US has a smaller corruption problem). What China spends on paper is very different than what they are actually getting. They've spent multiple years (decades?) trying to get it under control (and largely failing).
There's a good chance a decent chunk of what China says it has either does not exist or is not up to the standards they think it is. Foreign penetration of Chinese military shipbuilding is also pretty good because you can slip it in with all the other corruption.
"The disgraced deputy head of the state-owned firm developing China’s first home-grown aircraft carrier may face the death penalty over his alleged involvement in passing its secrets to foreign intelligence agents."
They even had to arrest their own anti-corruption officer for...taking bribes.
"First to fall was Liu Changhong, the CSIC anti-corruption czar. Fired, expelled from the party, and arrested in September 2017, Liu was accused of accepting bribes and using the convenience of his position to “seek benefits for others in business operations as well as personnel selection and appointment.” "
Their research division was being investigated every two years and each report basically said, "Yup, still highly corrupt" no matter how many people they fired or imprisoned.
"CCDI inspectors again found little improvement when they returned for the third time in March 2019. Despite warnings, there were continued violations of Central Committee regulations on proper official conduct. Corruption was still ongoing and laws were regularly broken. "
And there is a reason for that:
If you haven't been in touch with Chinese bureaucracy directly (or Pakistani bureaucracy, my other area of experience) it is difficult to understate just how much graft and falsification goes on and how it is basically just part of the system. Fire someone and replace them and the chances are the replacements are just as corrupt. It's endemic.
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I think PPP adjustment for judging military might makes no sense at all. It should probably go the other way: take nominal, and give a bonus to the highest gdp/cap. The richer country has access to technology and intelligence the poorer country cannot buy no matter how cheap the haircuts are. That's where the battle is won. My hypothesis is, highest gdp/cap country wins. e.g. , england's military history. I'd welcome some examples of PPP adjustments more accurately predicting the outcome of a conflict.
I take your point. Certainly China's larger GDP than England in 1700 didn't help them.
I don't think it applies to our current situation. China is the manufacturer of the world. Bringing up haircuts again... Those $80 haircuts in the U.S. might artificially inflate GDP, but it doesn't change the fact that China is making more stuff, and increasingly high quality stuff as well. How sure are you that the U.S. has a major technological advantage (outside of AI).
Are China's planes and missiles at U.S. levels? I think that is the question. U.S. military spending is a red herring. As you implied, it matters which country is producing more and better material. And spending doesn't tell us that. China is capable of making more weapons with their limited spending than we are with our massive spending.
Naturally the only way to tell if China is up to snuff is with a conflict. Let's hope we never find out.
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