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A nation's right to arm and defend itself

By Andrew London (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-03-17 06:31

The US playwright Tennessee Williams once said that it was in our nature to distrust each other, as it was our only defense against betrayal.

So it came as no surprise that some foreign quarters reacted to China's new military budget and January's space experiment with alarm.

China says it has peaceful intentions after it revealed military spending would this year get a 17.8 percent budget boost to 350.92 billion yuan ($45.32 billion).

Despite some analysts abroad speculating the real figure could be more, any criticism of China needs some consideration of a few factors not limited to double standards and politicking, with a touch of xenophobia.

Take the reaction of US Vice-President Dick Cheney for example.

Acknowledging China's crucial role in the Six-Party Talks with Pyongyang, Cheney said China's recent "anti-satellite" test and military build-up was not consistent with its stated goal of a peaceful rise.

Others like US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte have called for more transparency.

More measured responses have come from the US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said China was not a strategic adversary.

Smarter perhaps, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said it was important to emphasize in our relations with China those practical things that we have in common.

Howard knows that Australia's relationship with China will be vital in the future, and any scaremongering won't do much for diplomatic relations, or more importantly, trade.

And unlike the United States, Australia and Britain, China is not openly engaged in any major unpopular conflicts like Iraq, an epicenter of growing regional instability.

That said, Halliburton has made quite a business out of the US-led war on terror.

China has about 2.3 million soldiers to feed, clothe and arm.

Notwithstanding, it also needs to overhaul its pension system for retired personnel.

In his address at the opening of the NPC Sessions Premier Wen Jiabao said building a solid national defense system and a powerful people's army was a strategic task in socialist modernization.

China has successfully developed its own J10 multirole fighter aircraft and is speculated to build its own aircraft carrier by 2010, a move perhaps that could be considered a growing push for China to rely less on foreign technology for its military hardware in the future. That sort of research and development does not come cheap.

In terms of real spending, China's military expenditure in 2005 was reported to be $30.6 billion, only 1.35 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), while the United States and Britain spent 4.03 percent and 2.71 percent of GDP.

Calls for China to be more transparent would be like China asking the US or Britain for a little peek inside. There is such a thing as national security.

The West has long pushed the "Do as I say, not as I do" barrow. Whatever it spends on its military, China, like any peaceful nation, has the right to arm and defend itself.

(China Daily 03/17/2007 page3)