China’s national defense expenditure has shown a steady double-digit rate of increase since 1989, while at the same time has consistently lacked transparency. However, there has been little discussion of the standards by which this (lack of) transparency is being measured. Details of the scope and the breakdown of China’s national defense expenditure have not been clarified. Moreover, it is difficult not only to evaluate whether China’s increase in defense expenditure is ‘moderate’, as the Chinese government insists, but also to reach an objective judgment on whether it is ‘proper and reasonable’.
Although it has been pointed out that ‘there is a lack of transparency and credibility’, why does the Chinese government keep denying this and insist that China’s officially published national defense expenditure figures are ‘proper and reasonable’? It may be because China’s definition of ‘national defense expenditure’ is in itself different from the definition used by the global community.
The present study aims to show that two different concepts, namely ‘national defense expenditure’ and ‘military expenditure’, exist in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s accounting system, based on data related to the financial affairs of China’s armed forces, and to specify the definition and scope of both concepts.
First, the definition and scope of ‘military expenditure’ is compared with that provided by international organizations, research institutions, and previous studies. Second, this study aims to provide a clear definition and scope of China’s national defense expenditure based on previous studies. I also use these studies to confirm the Chinese government’s official definition and scope of ‘national defense expenditure’. Third, the definition of ‘national defense expenditure’ and ‘military expenditure’ is clarified from the accounting system used by the PLA to manage its military financial matters.
As a result, the following three points become clear. (1) In the classification of expenses in the military financial affairs accounting system, two different concepts exist: ‘national defense expenditure’ and ‘military expenditure’. ‘Military expenditure’ is a concept created for subsuming ‘national defense expenditure’. (2) ‘Military expenditure’ is composed of not only ‘military forces budget expenditure’ but also items such as ‘national defense department research and experimentation expenses’, ‘armed police force budget expenditure’, and ‘off-budget expenditure’. (3) If we wish to compare China’s military expenditure with that of other countries, we should use the term ‘military expenditure’ to cover expenses that are incurred on such items as armed police budgetary funds and non-budgetary funds, etc., which are not included in the published ‘national defense expenditure’ figures.

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　The EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement entered into force on 1 February 2020 （at 11pm on 31 January, BST）, and the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement applied provisionally as of 1 January 2021 and came into force on 1 May 2021. After Brexit, even after the referendum on 23 June 2016, the EU was searching for a new global strategy: the EU has reconfigured its external relations; and the internal political dynamism has also been reconfigured among its twenty-seven member states.

　The UK has been one of the most powerful among EU member states: economically the second largest and militarily the very strongest, if we observe their power resources through the figures of GDP and military expenditures as of 2016. Looking back to the 1970s, as the aggregate economic power resources of its member states increased with the UK accession, the EC became an international actor, often called as a civilian power. After the Cold War, the EU even envisioned its security strategy: ESS in 2003 and a Global Strategy in 2016. On the other side, the UK has often been called as an awkward partner, which stopped or slowed down the EU's integration process.

　With Brexit, the EU should need to change its global strategy for foreign and security policy and for economic and monetary policy. Brexit should also change the internal politics among remaining EU member states as a Franco-German leadership would no more be challenged by the awkward partner. The future relationship between the EU and the UK was formulated on paper, but we have yet to observe its real nature. This symposium was successful in starting our academic debates with five brilliant papers by Masahide Kobayashi （on EU security and defence policy）, Sara Konoe （on politics of financial integration）, Ken Takeda （on intergovernmental politics among EU member states）, Yoko Iwama （on German leadership） and Daisuke Ikemoto （on UK-EU relations）. Yoichi Usui was instrumental in planning this symposium.

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Military spending in the world has been increasing rapidly, especially through the 1970s. It will reach nearly a thousand billion dollars in 1985. Third World countries have most rapidly increased military spending. These expenditures have mainly been used to purchase weapons imported from industrialised nations. Some observers refer to this phoenomenon as the militarization of the Third World.
At the same time, efforts to reduce arms in the Third World have also been undertaken since most of these countries are faced with numerous problems. which are an inhibition on too much military spending.
Several causes for the increase in military expenditure in the Third World are overviewed in this essay: international tension, regional arms race, repression, and so on.
The efforts to reduce arms in the Third World are classified into four kinds according to the nature of the weapons concerned and the region expected to disarm: the disarmament of weapons the Third World countries do not possess, the disarmament of weapons Third World countries also possess, disarmament on a global scale, and disarmament within a certain region.
Findings were made as regards the diversity among Third World countries which was reflected in the tremendous difference in the amount of each country's military expenditure. The problem of disarmament in the Third World should not ignore this diversity. There is also a need to distinguish resourcerich countries, such as the oil producing Middle East nations, NICs with the ability to produce and export weapons of considerable quality, pariah states alienated inside each region, ‘big-powers’ seeking hegemony within each region and countries faced with international and internal tensions including armed conflicts, from other Third World countries.
Disarmament means the removal of the necessary condition for war. The main obstacle to disarmament, however, has the same roots as the sufficient condition for war. This is the reason why a lot of disarmament efforts have been made unsuccessfully. Therefore, we should try to tackle both of these conditions at the same time when we want to succeed in disarmament efforts: the process of the effort should not be called disarmament but demilitarization.

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