China fears containment as defence spending rises

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Reuters
By Ben Blanchard
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This picture taken secretly in last week of August 2008,shows armed security forces guarding the Jhokhang temple in Tibet's capital Lhasa, Photo by Col Thade (name changed for safety reasons)

BEIJING, Jan 20 (Reuters) - China fears containment abroad and separatist groups at home, a defence policy paper said on Tuesday, justifying a drive to increase military spending and push the People's Liberation Army into a high-tech era.

Describing China's general security as "improving", the document wasted little time denouncing those seeking independence for Taiwan, Tibet and the energy-rich western region of Xinjiang, which "pose threats to China's unity and security".

China's rising spending on arms and military modernisation has been criticised by countries including the United States and Japan for its opaqueness. Beijing says its defence budget is purely for defensive purposes and is quite open.

" China is faced with the superiority of developed countries economically, scientifically and technologically, as well as militarily," the 95-page white paper said.

"It also faces strategic manoeuvres and containment from the outside while having to face disruption and sabotage by separatist and hostile forces from the inside.

"The U.S. has increased its strategic attention to and input in the Asia-Pacific region, further consolidating its military alliances, adjusting its military deployments and enhancing its military capabilities."

While it said relations with Taiwan had "taken a significantly positive turn", the paper denounced U.S. arms sales to the island as "causing serious harm to Sino-U.S. relations as well as peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait".

The Chinese Ministry of Defence chief spokesman, Hu Changming, said China and Taiwan had "entered a period of peaceful development."

But he deflected a question about whether the People's Liberation Army had reduced the number of missiles aimed at Taiwan.

"Our country's military deployments are based on national security interests, the imperatives of our fundamental interests as a nation and our core national interests," Hu told a news conference to release the defence white paper. "When we engage in adjustments will also be determined by changes in circumstances."

China and Taiwan have faced off since 1949 when Nationalist forces fled to the island after losing the Chinese civil war to the Communists, although ties have improved considerably since Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwan president last year.

Media on the island said on Monday the military was considering cutting its troop strength by as much as a third as ties improve. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence said on Tuesday the "case is still being studied".

China said its military modernisation would focus on upgrading technology to maintain a "lean and effective deterrent force", a programme it saw being more or less finished by the middle of the century.

The report again defended China's rising military spending, pointing out that it spends less per capita than the United States, Britain, France or Russia and saying it was committed to peaceful development.

Beijing's planned allocation for the People's Liberation Army in 2008 was 417.769 billion yuan ($61.09 billion), up 17.6 percent on 2007. But international experts estimate true defence spending could be as much as triple the stated figure.

The white paper did not give any forward-looking defence budget estimates.

"Although the share of China's defence expenditure in its GDP has increased, its share of state fiscal expenditure has continued to drop on the whole," it said.

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beijing and Ralph Jennings in Taipei; Editing by Nick Macfie)