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A new report by Jennifer Kavanagh published by Costs of War reveals that the U.S. has spent at least $3.4 trillion countering the so-called China threat since 2012. This figure, an average of $260 billion a year, is more than total U.S. spending on 20 years of war in Afghanistan ($2.3 trillion). The total is massive, comprising 5 percent of total federal expenditures over the 13-year period (totaling $74.7 trillion) and 14 percent of discretionary spending ($23 trillion).
Kavanagh, the director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, provides the first estimate of the amount the U.S. has spent competing with China in the military domain over the period between 2012 and 2024, following then-President Barack Obama’s November 2011 announcement of his intention to “pivot” U.S. attention from the Middle East toward Asia. In addition to Department of Defense spending, the analysis also includes relevant expenditures by the intelligence agencies, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, and the State Department.
The paper also looks at some of the opportunity costs of this spending: Completely redoing the nation’s air traffic control system ($31.5 billion) and repairing all of the bridges currently rated in poor condition ($319 billion) would comprise about 10 percent of the expense of U.S. military competition with China between 2012-2024. Alternatively, the United States could fund about 85 years of tuition-free college education for all U.S. college goers.
A second report, written by Professor Suisheng Zhao, director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, argues that anti-Asian and anti-Chinese American racism has intensified along with the militarized U.S.-China rivalry that has escalated in the past decade, particularly since President Trump launched a trade war against China in 2018. “The militarized U.S.–China rivalry has fueled anti-Asian, especially anti–Chinese American, racism through hate crimes, unjust security targeting, and legal exclusions, undermining American values and harming U.S. scientific, economic, and strategic interests,” writes Zhao.
Read the reports:
The Costs of Militarized Rivalry with China: A First Estimate by
Jennifer Kavanagh
The Costs of U.S.-China Militarized Rivalry for Chinese and Asian Americans: Hate Crimes, Unjust Targeting of Scholars, and Legal Exclusions by Suisheng Zhao
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