China's military buildup raises questions -- Rumsfeld

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China's military buildup raises questions -- Rumsfeld

First posted 02:38am (Mla time) Oct 20, 2005
Agence France-Presse


BEIJING -- US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned China Wednesday it is sending "mixed signals" with a military buildup whose pace, scope and secretiveness has led other nations to question its intentions.

Defense Minister Cao Guangchuan denied that China has understated its military spending and insisted that raising the living standards of the country's poor made it "impossible to massively increase" military spending.

Rumsfeld raised US concerns about China's military intentions in a meeting with Cao and earlier in a seminar at a school that grooms future Communist Party leaders.

He was also scheduled to meet President Hu Jintao, and make an unprecedented visit to the headquarters of the Strategic Rocket Forces.

After meeting with Cao, Rumsfeld said they discussed "what I would characterize as mixed signals we've been getting... and to understand the reaction one gets when one receives mixed signals."

They agreed that the US and Chinese militaries need more educational exchanges and other activities "to demystify what we see of them and what they see of us," he said.

Cao, who described the talks as candid, pragmatic and constructive, insisted that Chinese military spending this year totals about 30 billion dollars, although he acknowledged that the space program and other equipment spending was outside the defense budget.

"That is the true budget we have today," he said.

The Pentagon in July estimated the true size of Chinese defense spending at 90 billion dollars a year, with much of it going to sophisticated weaponry that will enable China to project power in the Asia-Pacific region.

In his earlier session with students and faculty at the Central Party School, Rumsfeld laid out US concerns about China's lack of political openness.

While the United States would welcome a peaceful and prosperous China, he said, the relationship is "a complex one, with its share of challenges".

"Many countries, for example, have questions about the pace and the scope of China's military expansion," he said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Central Party School.

"A growth in China's power projection understandably leads other nations to question China's intentions, and to adjust their behavior in some fashion," he said.

"The rapid, and -- from our perspective at least -- non-transparent nature of this buildup contributes to their uncertainty."

He said China's efforts to form regional institutions that exclude the United States have also raised doubts about its intentions, and whether it "will make the right choices -- choices that will serve the world's real interests in regional peace and security".

In a question and answer session following his speech, Rumsfeld rejected claims that there were different voices in Washington on how to deal with China. Instead, he said the different voices were coming from China.

"We see mixed signals and we are seeking clarification," he said.

Although US concerns about China's military expansion are not new -- Rumsfeld made headlines in June when he raised them in a speech in Singapore -- this was the first time he made them in China.

The visit, his first to China as defense secretary, is likely to set the tone for President George W. Bush's visit here next month.

It comes nearly five years after a collision between a US Navy surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter blew up into an major crisis between the two powers.

A Pentagon report in July said the military buildup is tipping the balance against Taiwan and threatens the broader military balance in the region.

Rumsfeld made no direct reference to Taiwan in his remarks, but the island is the most immediate potential source of conflict.

Beijing, which claims it as a renegade provinces, asserts the right to retake it by force, and the United States has pledged to aid Taiwan's defense.

US defense officials said Rumsfeld would not raise Taiwan in his talks here but Chinese leaders might.

At the Central Party School, Rumsfeld extolled the virtues of open markets and free political systems as underpinning prosperity in other Asian neighbors.

"Every society has to be vigilant against another type of Great Wall that can be a burden on man's talents and is born from a fear of them -- a wall that limits speech, information and choices," he said.

He warned that "when those inside that wall glean insights about the world that they discover are notably different from what they have been taught and led to believe, the effect can prove dramatic."


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