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China's defence budget to rise 7.5 percent in 2010

By Ben Blanchard and Chris Buckley | Reuters

Paramilitary policemen patrol on Tiananmen Square in Beijing on 4 March 2010 during China’s annual session of parliament. China kept the rise in its military budget to 7.5 percent in 2010, a slowdown that left observers sceptical after over two decades of double-digit defence budget.Reuters/Jason Lee/China

China kept the rise in its military budget to 7.5 percent in 2010, a spokesman said on Thursday, a slowdown that left observers sceptical after an increase in tensions with the United States.

Some foreign analysts were surprised by the figure after over two decades of nearly unbroken double-digit rises in China’s defence budget, and said the announced numbers were unlikely to show the growing power’s real military spending.

“All the evidence suggests that they are on a very powerful trajectory of expansion in substantive terms, and they seem to use this figure for political purposes almost, to send signals,” said Ron Huisken, a China defence expert at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Chinese parliamentary spokesman Li Zhaoxing said the increase would bring the country’s defence budget for the year to 532.1 billion yuan ($77.95 billion), or 37.1 billion yuan more than what was actually spent on defence in 2009.

That figure included spending by local governments on civil militia. The central government’s core military budget was 518.6 billion, which Li said also marked a 7.5 percent increase on spending in that category.

The announcement came after quarrels with the United States over human rights, Internet censorship, Tibet and Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.

The budget for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) showed Beijing was not courting confrontation, spokesman Li told a news conference a day ahead of the opening of China’s annual parliament.

Last year, the government set the official military budget at 480.7 billion yuan ($70.4 billion), a 14.9 percent rise on the one in 2008.

Li indicated actual defence spending in 2009 reached 495 billion yuan, apparently reflecting the fact government revenues grew more than the budget projected.

A PLA officer had called for a rise in 2010 military spending that would send a defiant signal to the United States after Washington moved forward in January with plans to sell $6.4 billion in arms to Taiwan.

Another PLA officer, teaching at an elite university for training officers, has stirred controversy with a book urging China to build the world’s strongest military and move to displace the United States as global “champion”.

“I think the (Chinese) armed forces will be dissatisfied,” Ikuo Kayahara, a retired Japanese major-general who teaches security studies at Takushoku University, said on Thursday.

“The world has been criticising China for increasing its defence budget by more than 10 percent every year,” he said. “China may be reacting to this by trying to show that it is not focused only on expanding its armed forces.

Xu Guangyu, a researcher for the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association and retired PLA major general, said he would have been happier with a higher number to fund faster equipment improvements.

“This number comes after we’ve had increases that have basically overcome the problems we faced with poor conditions and wages for military personnel,” he told Reuters.

“But we do need to keep up a certain rate of growth to reach a necessary level of military modernisation,” he said.

China has 2.3 million personnel in its armed forces, more than any other country. The government has sought to slim numbers and lift troop quality by offering them better pay and benefits.

“An increase of, say, 10 percent would have been more appropriate,” said Xu.

Strict discipline made it unthinkable for serving PLA officers to openly grumble about decisions made by the ruling Communist Party, he added.

“China will adhere to a path of peaceful development and defensive military policies,” said the parliamentary spokesman Li, a former foreign minister. “Our defence spending is relatively low.”

US President Barack Obama has proposed a record $708 billion in defence spending for the fiscal year 2011. The budget calls for a 3.4 percent rise in the Pentagon’s base budget to $549 billion, plus $159 billion for US military missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Li said China’s spending would help the PLA improve its technology and cope with increasingly diverse tasks.

“They’re putting a lot of resources into modernisation, including advanced weapons systems,” Andrew Yang, Taiwan’s deputy minister of defence, said of China.

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Copyright © 2010 Reuters

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