China unveils military secrets
China has released data on its rapidly expanding military might for the first time in a paper that argues the U. S. is destabilizing the region.
SHANGHAI — China has laid bare the scale of its rapidly expanding military might for the first time in a paper that argued 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 a total of 2.3 million members. It was not clear if the new count represented a real reduction in numbers, or if the shortfall was made up by other ground force units that appeared to have been omitted from the count, including the Second Artillery Force.
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” was also 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 socalled “pivot” toward the AsiaPacific region, suggesting his policy of boosting the American military footprint there was causing friction.