China ups defence budget by 17.8%

04/03/2007| IslamWeb

China will boost its defence spending by 17.8 per cent this year, continuing its annual increases in money for missiles, tanks and the building blocks of military modernisation.

A spokesman for the National People's Congress, said on Sunday, that the planned allocation for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) for 2007 was about 44.94bn.

Jiang Enzhu, said that this figure represented an increase of 17.8 per cent from last year.

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

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

Jiang said China has always pursued "co-ordinated 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 36.6 US billion.

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.

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 hi-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 that of the United States'. The US government has requested 484.1 US billion for the next fiscal year starting from October 2007. That figure does not cover military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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 about 30.65 US billion, or about 6.2 per cent of what the US spent that year.

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

Dick Cheney, the US vice president, 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'".

PHOTO CAPTION

Paramilitary recruits (rear) watch a demonstration during a training session at an army base on the outskirts of Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning province February 11, 2007. (Reuters)