China announces 7.5-per-cent rise in military budget - Summary

Beijing - China announced a 7.5-per-cent hike in its annual military budget on Thursday, following international concern over larger increases in recent years. The draft defense budget for 2010 was set at 532.115 billion yuan (77.9 billion dollars), a rise of 37.116 billion yuan, or 7.5 per cent, from last year, a spokesman for China's nominal parliament told reporters.

"The Chinese government has always paid attention to controlling the military budget ... at a reasonable level to ensure the balance between national defense and economic development," National People's Congress spokesman Li Zhaoxing said.

The 3,000-member congress is scheduled to discuss and approve the national budget during its 10-day annual session, which begins on Friday.

The budget hike is the smallest percentage increase for some 20 years. China defended last year's 15-per-cent increase as "modest" and necessary for military modernization and to improve conditions for troops.

But a recent book by a People's Liberation Army (PLA) military analyst has urged faster military development to counter US dominance.

In "The China Dream: Post-American Superpower Thinking and Strategic Position," Liu Mingfu, a PLA senior colonel, argued that China should try to replace the United States as the world's strongest military power.

Other Chinese military analysts said Liu was expressing only his personal opinions in his book.

"That's just his ambition," Luo Yuan, a senior researcher with the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, said on Wednesday. "We have no intention of challenging the US," the China Daily newspaper quoted Luo as saying.

In another recent book, "C-shaped Enclosure," PLA Colonel Dai Xu urged more cautious military development but said he was "pessimistic about the future."

Dai expounded the long-held Chinese view that China is surrounded by military forces from the United States and its allies in Asia.

He said he feared the presence of these "hostile" forces meant China "cannot escape the calamity of war" in the next two decades.

China jumped to second place in the list of the world's biggest military spenders in 2008, behind only the United States, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported last year.

China's estimated military spending tripled in real terms over 10 years to reach 85 billion dollars in 2008, one-seventh of the estimated US spending, the institute said.

It said China's rapid economic growth meant that the burden of military spending was "still moderate," at 2.1 per cent of gross domestic product.

Western critics bemoan a lack of transparency from China and claim its real military spending is much higher than its budget figure.

Some US analysts estimate China's actual military spending at up to three times the budget figure.

The PLA stepped up its modernization in the 1990s after studying US use of high-technology weapons and systems in the first invasion of Iraq.

During a parade to mark the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China on October 1, the PLA showcased more than a dozen missile systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads.

In the run-up to the parade, state media quoted Defense Minister Liang Guanglie as saying last month that much of the PLA's weaponry had already "reached or come close to the world-leading standards."

The party's Central Military Commission, headed by party leader and state president Hu Jintao, assumes formal control of the PLA. But it is unclear how closely PLA generals share the party leaders' official line on China's "peaceful rise".

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/312439,china-announces-75-per-cent-rise-in-military-budget--summary.html.