China takes aim at U.S. scheme

Report reveals military might, blasts Obama’s ‘pivot’ plan for region

SHANGHAI China has laid bare the scale of its rapidly expanding military might for the first time in a paper that argued that the American “pivot to Asia” was destabilizing the region.

China’s People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, has 850,000 service members spread across seven regional commands, according to the defence report issued Tuesday. The navy and air force have 235,000 and 398,000 members respectively.

The paper also alludes to China’s powerful Second Artillery Force. Described as “the country’s core force for strategic deterrence,” it oversees China’s nuclear arsenal and is tasked with “deterring other countries from using nuclear weapons against China”.

The total number of members listed was 1.48 million. In 2006, China said the military had 2.3 million members.

Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said the paper represented the first time China had made public “the actual number of army, navy and air force servicemen.” China’s “main missile lineup” also was being divulged for the first time, Xinhua added.

Last year, China said its annual defence budget — now the world’s second largest — would grow to about $102 billion.

The report, which contained few specific details of China’s military structure, was emphatic in describing what it said was the country’s commitment to a doctrine of peaceful development. “China will never seek hegemony or behave in a hegemonic manner, nor will it engage in military expansion,” it argued.

The report also attacked U. S. President Barack Obama’s so-called “pivot” towards the Asia-Pacific region, suggesting that his policy of boosting the American military footprint there was causing frictions.

“The U.S. is adjusting its Asia-Pacific security strategy and the regional landscape is undergoing profound changes,” it said.

“Frequently (this policy) makes the situation there more tense.”

Beijing views the “pivot” — under which 60 per cent of the U.S. navy forces are to be deployed to the region by 2020 — as an attempt to contain China’s rise and block the country’s development.