What does the $753 billion defense budget mean?

 　　On April 9th, local time, the Biden administration announced the "Budget Guidelines" for the 2022 fiscal year, in which the defense budget was approximately US$753 billion (including overseas operations expenses). Immediately, there were criticisms from the US senators with completely opposed views in the US media. After browsing these "critical" views and the "Budget Guidelines" issued by the White House, I found that the word "China" was mentioned many times, which reminded me of the new version of "China" that started to be implemented on January 1 this year. A vision first proposed in the National Defense Law.

　　Let me talk about the more representative "critical" views of the US senators from both parties. One is that some Republican senators represented by Republican leader McConnell in the Senate stated in a joint statement: "Empty talk is cheap, but defending our country is not. China's defense spending has increased by $200 billion in the past 10 years. , While the United States has reduced by 400 billion US dollars. China’s military investment is in line with its desire to defeat the United States and put our military power at risk. Second, Senator Sanders stated in a statement about the fiscal year 2022 defense budget. “Serious concerns.” In his statement, Sanders first praised the “guidelines” for tilting toward non-defense spending, and then said: “I have serious concerns about the Pentagon’s proposed budget of $753 billion, which is higher than the Trump administration’s defense last year. The budget was increased by 12.3 billion U.S. dollars. The United States has spent more on the military than the total of the 12 countries in the bottom line. It is time for us to seriously consider the huge overspending, waste, and fraud that currently exist in the Pentagon. "

　　Let's talk about the China-related content in the White House's "Budget Guide." To put it simply, in the "Ministry of Defense Budget" section of the appendix of this "Guide", it is emphasized that the Ministry of Defense "makes the response to threats from China the top challenge" and uses the "Pacific Threat Initiative" and regional partnerships. Responding to the so-called "challenges" from China. At the same time, when the word “China” was first mentioned in the preface of the “Guide”, it specifically emphasized the relationship between President Biden’s proposal of the US Jobs Program with an expenditure of approximately US$2.25 trillion and China, saying “This program will create data. Millions of good jobs will rebuild the country’s infrastructure and enable the United States to surpass China in the competition and meet the great challenges of our time.” Perhaps it is the proposed huge investment plan of 2.25 trillion US dollars and the “relief plan” of up to 1.9 trillion US dollars that Congress has passed before that made McConnell and other Republican senators express their “dissatisfaction” and communicate with China. The real reason for the "comparison" of the defense budget is because they stated in the statement: Although President Biden has put trillions of dollars in expenditure on the priority of the domestic liberal wish list, the funding for the US military has been ignored. NS.

　　Finally back to the title of the article-what does the $753 billion defense budget mean? I think the answer is a vision mentioned for the first time in China's new version of the "National Defense Law"-"enriching the country and strengthening the army." The reason for this is that although the Biden administration increased the defense budget by 1.6% in the "Budget Guidelines," non-defense expenditures have increased even more. For example, in the 2021 fiscal year expenditure of 15 departments submitted by the Trump administration last year, only the four expenditures of the Department of Veterans Services, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Treasury were positive growth. The Department of Defense ranked second and the other 11 departments. Expenses are all negative growth. In the "Budget Guidelines" released by the Biden administration this time, the expenditures of 15 departments are all positive growth, but the Ministry of National Defense ranks only second from the bottom. Ranked first is the Ministry of Education, with an increase of 40.8%, the second is the Ministry of Commerce, with an increase of 27.7%, the third is the Ministry of Health and Human Services, with an increase of 23.1%, and the fourth is the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with an increase of 16.3%. In addition, the "Budget Guidelines" also changed the situation that non-defense expenditures accounted for less than defense expenditures for the first time over the years, increasing the proportion of non-defense expenditures to 50.5%. From this, it can be concluded that the Biden administration is increasing Financial investment has gradually adjusted from the previous focus on "strengthening the army" to "prospering the country and strengthening the army." And this move may be the first step taken by the United States to prepare for "long-term strategic competition with China."