China plans 17.8% defence budget rise

BEIJING - China plans to boost defence spending by 17.8 per cent in 2007, continuing the emerging power's stretch of double-digit annual increases in money for missiles, tanks and the building blocks of military modernisation.

Mr Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for the National People's Congress, told a news briefing on Sunday that the planned allocation for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) for 2007 was 350.92 billion yuan (S$69.2 billion), an increase of 17.8 per cent from last year.

'China is committed to taking a path of peaceful development and it pursues a defensive military posture,' Mr Jiang said.

He said China's national defence was aimed at securing China's national security and unification, and making sure that the country makes steady progress towards building a moderately prosperous society.

'China has neither the wherewithal nor the intention to enter into an arms race with any country and China does not and will not pose a threat to any country,' he said.

The announcement was made a day before the annual session of China's national Parliament begins.

Mr Jiang said China has always pursued 'coordinated development of the national economy and national defence'.

The defence outlay represented 7.5 per cent of this year's total planned budget, he said.

The rise comes after a 14.7 per cent increase in China's defence spending in 2006, when the official defence outlay reached 283.8 billion yuan.

China is seeking to modernise its huge but often poorly equipped military forces by building or buying new ships, missiles, fighter planes and other armaments to enable Beijing to extend its strategic reach, and also maintain pressure on Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China says must accept eventual reunification.

Raise salaries
Mr Jiang said the increased spending would be used to raise salaries and benefits for military personnel and to boost the military's defensive combat capability using high-tech systems.

The budget increase is not likely to comfort Washington, which has repeatedly criticised China's military spending as opaque.

China's military spending is still dwarfed by the United States'.

The Bush administration has requested US$484.1 billion (S$739 billion) for the Defence Department in the next fiscal year starting from October 2007. That figure does not cover military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Jiang noted that China's defence spending was modest in comparison with other major countries, both in absolute terms and as a share of GDP or the total national budget.

He said China's defence spending as a share of the national budget in 2005 stood at 7.3 per cent. That compared with 20.04 per cent for the US, 11.41 per cent for France and 9.2 per cent for Germany.

He also said China's defence expenditure in 2005 stood at around US$30.65 billion, or about 6.2 per cent of what the US spent that year.

International experts have estimated that China's true spending on the PLA may be up to three times more than the official figure.

However, Mr Jiang stressed that the recent increases were 'compensatory' boosts to make up for China's weak national defence foundation following a decade of decreasing expenditures between 1979 and 1989, when expenditures fell by 5.8 per cent annually.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney said on a recent visit to Asia that China's anti-satellite missile test in January and its military buildup were 'not consistent with Beijing's stated goal of a peaceful rise'. -- REUTERS