Pentagon plays up 'China threat' for funds
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-02-09 21:13

Chinese military experts on Thursday reproached a US defense review playing up "China's military threat", recently issued by the U.S. Department of Defence, saying it is designed to secure a larger defense budget.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan invites questions at a press conference in Beijing. [newsphoto/file]

The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), Pentagon's new guidelines, said China has "the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that over time offset traditional US military advantages."

The 92-page-long QDR report devoted three paragraphs to China's military issues and the countermeasures the United States should take, mentioning "China" or "Chinese" 15 times.

"This is the first time the United States has singled out China in its defense report as 'an emerging power that has the greatest potential to militarily challenge the United States', though senior U.S. officials have expressed similar views on various occasions earlier," said Yao Yunzhu, a research fellow with the Military Academy of Sciences of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).

"The report for the first time explicitly refers to Russia, India and China as emerging strategic rivals, but more attention was given to the so-called 'China military threat'," said Peng Guangqian, a major PLA general and also a research fellow with the PLA Military Academy of Sciences.

Noticeably, U.S. President Bush submitted a budget report for 2007 to the Congress on the same day as the QDR report was officially submitted, proposing a record defense budget of 439.3 billion US dollars.

"If the additional spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is taken into account, the US defense budget for 2007 will hit a record high of 500 billion dollars," Peng said. "That is almost equal to the sum of the defense spending of the rest of the world."

He said the fabrication of "foreign threats" by the United States reflected the Pentagon's deep-rooted style of "making enemies" and that its real intention is to secure additional defense funds to help its arms industry fish for more profits.

Compared with that of the United States, China's defense expenditure is "small", experts said.

Deng Hongzhou, a military expert involved in drafting the white papers on China's national defense, said China's defense expenditure has increased with economic growth since the 1990s, but the proportion it takes in China's national budget is decreasing.

Official statistics show that China's expenditures for national defense totaled 244.656 billion yuan (about 30.20 billion U.S. dollars), about 7 percent of the U.S. defense budget. The military expenditure per capita of the United States is 60 times that of China's. Chinese soldiers receives about 3 percent of the funds allocated to their U.S. counterparts.

"The United States is equal to China in terms of territorial area, but China lags far behind in military expenditure," Peng said. "Thus it is evident whose military strength is beyond its needs."

The United States should evaluate China's military capabilities objectively, said Teng Jianqun, a researcher with the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association. "China's peaceful development doesn't necessarily mean that China and the United States will become military antagonists in the future."

China's white paper on national defense says it adheres to the path of peaceful development and adopts a defense policy that is defensive in nature. "China has never threatened any country in the past and will never do so in the future."

So far China has not set up any military base in any other country, nor has China sent any troops to other countries. In contrast, the United States have established more than 100 military bases overseas, which have involved more than 100,000 soldiers in Asia alone.

Zhu Feng, a professor of the International Relations Institute of the prestigious Beijing University, said China and the United States should enhance communication through established channels in order to promote understanding and mutual trust.

"Only by this way can the two countries improve the China-US constructive partnership in the new century and jointly promote world peace and development," Zhu said.