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By Meng Na

June 8, 2005

Original Article (English)

BEIJING: Chinese military experts on Friday dismissed the notion that China is a military threat, articulated up by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld earlier this month, saying it is totally groundless and is actually designed to peddle the sale of U.S. weapons.

Rumsfeld said on June 4 at an Asian regional security conference in Singapore that, "China is sharply increasing its military spending and buying large amounts of sophisticated weapons. Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment? Why these continuing large and expanding arms purchases?"

Peng Guangqian, a major general in the People's Liberation Army (PLA), who is also a research fellow with the PLA Military Academy of Sciences, said on Friday that Rumsfeld's frequent comments on the military threat from China has at least three true objectives.

"Firstly, the U.S. Department of Defense needs an excuse to maintain its huge military budget and military scale; Secondly, portraying China as a military threat could help promote the sale of U.S. arms and; Thirdly, China as a military threat could help the U.S. continue to interfere in relations across Taiwan Strait and could be used as a ready excuse for the U.S. to sell weapons to Taiwan's military," Peng elaborated.

Peng said Rumsfeld's accusations coincided with the Pentagon's recent report on China’s military, a report that reads like science fiction and exaggerates China's military capabilities and intentions, according to various experts who have read it.

Last year, China's national defense budget was 211.7 billion yuan (about $25.5 billion), while that of the United States was $455.9 billion, or 17.8 times that of China, Peng said. Per capita U.S. defense expenditures were 77 times that of China.

Major General Ding Jiye, head of the finance office of the PLA General Logistics Department, said that along with its economic growth, China has increased national defense spending in recent years. The increases are used chiefly to improve the living conditions of military officers and men, he said.

China set a 244.7 billion yuan (approximately $29.48 billion) budget for national defense in 2005, up 12.6 percent over last year. From January 2005, the PLA increased the daily board expenses for its soldiers by 1.8 yuan to 10 yuan. "China has neither the willingness nor capability to drastically expand its military," said Ding.

"As a sovereign nation, China is entitled to invest a certain proportion of its tax revenues for maintaining a limited defense force. Its military force is defensive, not offensive, and it will never threaten other countries," said Peng.

The May 9th issue of Newsweek, for example,  carried a cover story saying that a handful of Americans, mainly "neoconservatives" and Pentagon officials, always exaggerate China's military intentions.