China Increases Military Spending
BEIJING, March 4 — China announced Tuesday that it will again sharply increase its military spending this year, budgeting a 17.6 percent rise that is roughly equal to last year’s increase.
Disclosure of plans for a $59 billion outlay in 2008 followed a Pentagon report Monday that raised questions about China’s rapidly increasing military budget, and came less than three weeks before a presidential election in Taiwan, the self-governed island over which China claims sovereignty.
A spokesman for the Chinese legislature said the country’s decade-long military buildup does “not pose a threat to any country,” but he warned that relations with Taiwan were at a “crucial stage” and that the island would “surely pay a dear price” if it were to take steps that China viewed as a declaration of independence.
At the same time Taiwanese choose a president, they also will vote on a referendum issue asking whether the island should apply for U.N. membership under the name Taiwan.
China’s reported $59 billion budget is still a fraction of what the United States spends each year on its armed forces. President Bush last month requested $515 billion to fund the Pentagon in fiscal 2009, a 7.5 percent increase, plus $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States has pressed China to be more open about its intentions as the scope of its military capabilities and pace of spending increase. At a Pentagon briefing Monday, David Sedney, deputy assistant defense secretary for East Asia, reiterated the U.S. view that China’s defense establishment still severely underreports total spending and has not been clear about its intentions.
“China’s military buildup has been characterized by opacity,” Sedney told reporters, and “by the inability of people in the region and around the world to really know what ties together the capabilities that China’s acquiring with the intentions it has.”
The Pentagon report said China’s near-term focus remains on preparations for potential problems in the Taiwan Strait. But China’s nuclear force modernization, its growing arsenal of advanced missiles and its development of space and cyberspace technologies are changing military balances in Asia and beyond, the report concluded.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a news conference in Beijing that the United States was stuck in a “Cold War mentality” and that the annual Pentagon report on China’s military power, mandated by Congress since 1999, “is a serious distortion of facts and attempts to interfere in China’s internal affairs.”
Jiang Enzhu, a spokesman for the National People’s Congress, said at a separate news conference that the 2008 budget would fund only a “moderate increase” in weapons purchases. Most of the additional funds would go toward higher military salaries, rising oil costs and training programs, he said. He noted that the country has a long-standing plan to modernize its forces.
Jiang said that from 2003 to 2007, China’s national defense spending increased by an annual average of 15.8 percent, while government revenue increased by an annual average of 22.1 percent. Defense spending was the equivalent of 1.4 percent of China’s gross domestic product last year, he said. By comparison, he said, U.S. defense spending was 4.6 percent of GDP and Britain’s was 3 percent.
Although the Pentagon report raised questions about China’s military intentions, Sedney told reporters Monday that he had just returned from “surprisingly successful” talks with his Chinese counterparts.
In addition to reaching a deal to establish a military telephone link between the two countries, announced last week, the two sides agreed to move forward in a dialogue on nuclear strategy and policy, he said.
(WaPo)
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We are going to regret the days that we ignored the Chicoms. For a nation that aborts half their female children, they need an occupation for their throngs of men. The NYT had an article about this ages and ages ago. Despite sending lots of them into the west to work on public works projects, this increase in the military seems natural.
Watch out, Taiwan. Watch out, world.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:16 amthe second one from the foreground, the dude with the pointed chin, is fucked up like a football-bat
Look at those fingers, all spread out like that.
tsk tsk
March 5th, 2008 at 7:43 amPardon my French…but, these cocksuckers are NOT our friends.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:53 amThey are not our friends at all. They will be a major threat in the coming years. could any of you imagine if Obama or Hillary was elected, started cutting down our military while China increases theirs yearly? think about that while some of you do your little ‘protest’ vote this year.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:09 amone shot, watch out your pacific coast
March 5th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Hillary’s friends.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:19 amNow are we not lucky or what?
If Hillary or He Who Must Not Be Middle-Named win, Taiwan better watch their backs. On the bright side, as anyone who’s ever used any tool made in China knows, even if they buy or steal advanced technology, they’ll manage to fuck it up. And, while quantity has a quality all it’s own, they don’t have the numbers to swamp us, especially in the air or on the sea. Any troops they managed to land on Taiwan would quickly find themselves without resuppy or reinforcements.
Plus, while I don’t know as much as I’d like about their internal affairs, I doubt they have the will to take the massive casualties they suffered during the Korean war. If thousands upon thousands of only-child ‘Little Emperors’ started coming home in body bags, all those parents would tear any Communist Party officials they could get their hands on limb from limb.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:43 pm