Beijing announced a double-digit rise in defense spending yesterday, but sought to soothe concerns in Asia and the US by insisting its expanding military posed no threat.
The defense budget has been set at 480.7 billion yuan (US$70.2 billion), up 62.5 billion yuan from the previous year, said former foreign minister Li Zhaoxing (李肇星), spokesman for the National People’s Congress (NPC).
Although the rise was slightly smaller than last year’s increase of 17.9 percent, it marked a doubling of China’s stated defense spending since 2006.
“China’s limited military powers will be solely used for the purpose of safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Li told a parliamentary press conference ahead of today’s opening of the annual legislative session. “This will not pose a threat to any country.”
Li emphasized the spending was small for the size of China’s population and national territory, accounting for 1.4 percent of its GDP. This compared to 4 percent for the US and 2 percent for the UK and France, he said.
Li said the increase was aimed in large part at ensuring that living standards for its estimated 2.3 million servicemen and women rose with the rest of society. However, it would also be used to upgrade the military’s information technology and its ability to engage in disaster response and anti-terror missions, he said.
Military facilities damaged by the massive earthquake last May in Sichuan Province must also be repaired, Li said.
“There is no such thing as a hidden military expenditure in China,” he said.
However, the budget figure has “little association with reality,” said Ralph Cossa, head of the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He said actual spending could be three to four times larger.
“What’s included in the figure? The transparency of what China is spending this money on is what is really hard to gauge,” he said.
“The real question is: Where is China’s military development going?” he said. “What are its objectives? How many nuclear missiles does it have now and does it plan to have? Things like that.”
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