The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 952 Dilemma
As we all know, bullets are a widely used lethal weapon in modern warfare. They are loved by armed forces of various countries because of their cheapness and ease of use.

It is no exaggeration to say that bullets are the simplest tool to kill enemies or destroy supplies during war.

Nowadays, modern bullets include ordinary bullets, armor-piercing bullets, incendiary bullets, tracer bullets, explosive bullets, armor-piercing incendiary bullets, incendiary tracer bullets, armor-piercing incendiary tracer bullets and other various bullets.

Although the U.S. military did not engage in combat last year, each soldier fired an average of 1200 bullets just for shooting. The U.S. has 156 million regular troops and 60 National Guard troops, and a total of 25.92 billion bullets of all kinds were consumed in shooting.

In order to reduce procurement costs, the US military purchased 5 million rounds of bullets from the East last year, and this number is growing at a very impressive rate.

In addition, the US military has imported more than 10 firearms of various types from the East, including automatic rifles, pistols, machine guns, and sniper rifles.

Last year, the U.S. military spent more than $4 million just from unified procurement orders.

Panshan Group sells more than 200 million guns of various types and hundreds of millions of bullets of various types in the U.S. firearms market every year.

The guns produced by Panshan Group occupy one-third of the U.S. civilian firearms market, and rifles occupy half of the market.

Due to the relaxed gun control, the United States has a very large arms market. The largest customers of many arms companies are not the military or the police, but the American people.

Under the lobbying of arms companies, the United States initially set relatively high tariffs on imported guns, which made the prices of imported guns generally higher.

Since workers in European countries are generally paid better than in the United States, if a high-end gun is produced in a European country, the price will be higher.

Even guns produced in the United States are generally not cheap, and many Americans cannot afford good guns.

Therefore, the American civilian firearms market has always been dominated by American weapons companies.

But this situation has been broken since 1979. As China and the United States formally established diplomatic relations, China's Panshan Group has set its sights on the American civilian firearms market.

At the beginning, there were the Type 56 semi-automatic rifle and the Type 56 submachine gun, which were copies of the SKS and AK-47.

Before the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, AK47 and SKS were quite rare weapons in the United States, and few people could buy these standard rifles from the enemy countries across the Iron Curtain. At that time, the main source of AK47 was the spoils brought back by American soldiers from the battlefield, which also made these rifles extremely expensive.

At that time, a Huaxia AK47 cost only US$499, while an MP5 cost US$1595.

The Type 56 semi-automatic rifle and Type 56 submachine gun quickly captured the civilian weapons market in the United States, along with other firearms such as the Type 54 pistol.

New guns are cheap, used guns are even cheaper.

Since 1985, firearms exported by Panshan Group have occupied one-third of the U.S. civilian firearms market.

This is because the United States has taken relevant measures and increased relevant import tariffs, otherwise Panshan Group’s firearms would have occupied a higher market share.

Cheap guns came from the East, so cheap that even the societies had to upgrade their guns.

In 1994, under the lobbying of American weapons companies, the Clinton administration issued an order: banning the import of most firearms and ammunition from China!
But this is of no help at all, because these guns and ammunition entered the United States through Mexico, and even if the costs were added in, they were still much cheaper than similar guns in the United States.

According to current conservative estimates, there are approximately 3000 million firearms of various types from the East and approximately 30 billion rounds of ammunition in the American civilian population.

It is not that there are no American weapons companies that want to lobby the government to take further measures, but without an audience, the government dare not take further measures. Firstly, the North American Free Trade Area is included in the important strategy of the United States, which is related to the position of the United States in the world. This is also the private land designated by the United States. The reason for establishing the North American Free Trade Area is that the United States is becoming increasingly powerless in international competition, so it needs to enhance its competitiveness in the form of the North American Free Trade Area.

If the North American Free Trade Area is destroyed because of these guns, leading to its collapse, it would cause great harm to the United States.

Secondly, the American people own a large number of firearms, which is no joke. Pushing too hard will cause public anger, which is no joke.

If there is a stronger person, he can easily mobilize tens of thousands of troops in the United States.

If they were really organized and could mobilize hundreds of thousands or even millions of troops in the United States, that would be a big deal.

The United States is also helpless about the current situations. The three-foot-thick ice did not form overnight.

Since the first oil crisis, oil prices have skyrocketed, leading to higher production costs. Coupled with the fact that labor costs in the United States are already high and are still rising, manufacturing profits have dropped significantly, and some are even making losses.

Industrial products from Japan and Europe are rushing into the American market like crazy, trying to seize the American market. Many American factories are either going bankrupt or moving to developing countries.

After 1979, China's industrial products continued to flow into the United States, first general daily necessities, toothpaste, face towels, socks, clothes, shoes, toothbrushes, etc., followed by various mid- to high-end products.

The momentum is even greater than that of Japan and Germany back then.

But now, Chinese products are very cheap, which can effectively reduce the inflation rate. The American people have become accustomed to the high-quality and low-priced products from China.

The United States used to have a trade surplus with China, but starting a few years ago, it has turned from a trade surplus to a trade deficit, and the trade deficit will continue to increase.

The Clinton administration did try to change this situation, but several attempts ended in failure.

After nearly twenty years of efforts, the common interests of both sides have become very large.

The Clinton administration made an effort before, and China announced that it had successfully developed the Y-13 regional airliner and put it on the market. Two months ago, China made another effort and announced that it had successfully developed the Y-10 trunk airliner.

This caused companies such as Boeing to be very dissatisfied with the Clinton administration.

Then there are also complaints within the United States about the losses caused by this.

The Clinton administration was forced to compromise, and all its efforts were in vain.

The Pentagon wanted to take this opportunity to prevent further cuts in military spending, or even increase it, but the Clinton administration and Congress were not willing to do so. Now the United States had no intention of starting a war.

Since World War II, the United States has never won any war. Although it declared a great victory in the Gulf War, the number of casualties still exceeded the US government's estimates, making the body bags prepared by the US government simply not enough.

To this day, there is still a dispute over compensation for American casualties, leaving a huge debt.

The interest and principal of U.S. debts that mature every year are a headache for the current U.S. government. How can it possibly increase military spending that has been suppressed with great difficulty?

Even the warships, aircraft, tanks, etc. that were originally scheduled to be retired have had their retirement time postponed, thereby reducing military spending.

(End of this chapter)