China boosts military spending

$110-B BUDGET

BEIJING—CHINA will boost its military spending by 11.2 percent this year, the government said on Sunday, unveiling Beijing’s first defense budget since US President Barack Obama launched a “pivot” to reinforce American influence across the Asia-pacific region.

Li Zhaoxing, the spokesperson for China’s parliament, announced that the defense budget would bring official spending on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to 670.3 billion yuan ($110 billion) for 2012, after a 12.7-percent increase last year and a nearly unbroken string of double-digit across two decades.

China’s public budget is widely believed by foreign experts to undercount its real spending on military modernization, which has unnerved Asian neighbors and drawn re-

rises

peated US calls for Beijing to share more about its intentions.

Seeking to allay international concerns, Li said the money spent on the PLA paled in comparison with outlays on the US military.

“You can see that we have 1.3 billion people with a large land area and a long coastline, but our outlays on defense are quite low compared to other major countries,” Li told a news conference before the annual session of the National People’s Congress, the Communist Party-controlled legislature that will approve the budget.

Obama’s proposed budget for 2013 calls for a Pentagon base budget of $525.4 billion, about $5.1 billion less than approved for 2012.

“China’s limited military power is for the sake of preserving national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity,” said Li, a former foreign minister. “Fundamentally, it constitutes no threat to other countries.”

Asian neighbors, however, have been nervous about Beijing’s expanding military, and this latest double-digit rise could reinforce worries in Japan, India and Southeast Asian nations.

Obama has sought to reassure Asian allies that the United States will stay a key player in the area, and the Pentagon has said it will “rebalance toward the Asia-pacific region.”

“China shares its land border with 14 countries; it used to make sense that a country in such a position maintains strong conventional forces,” said Kazuya Sakamoto, a professor at Osaka University in Japan who researches international security.

“But in this nuclear age, it does not really make sense China, a nuclear-armed country, continues to build up its military at such a pace,” Sakamoto said.

‘Growing bolder’

Beijing has sought to balance long-standing wariness about US intentions with a desire for steady relations with Washing- ton, especially as both governments focus on domestic politics this year, when Obama faces a reelection fight and China’s ruling Communist Party undergoes a leadership handover.

But the US “pivot” has also stirred disquiet in China, where some PLA officers called it an effort to fence in their country and frustrate Beijing’s territorial claims.

Growing Chinese power and East Asia’s economic importance is driving neighboring countries to boost defense spending and has prompted the United States to redirect defense resources to the region.

US moves to rotate new troops to Australia, shore up alliances with other traditional allies Japan and the Philippines while forging new military ties to Vietnam have heightened Beijing’s fears of encirclement.

“It is important to note that Beijing views itself as reacting to the increasingly assertive policies of other countries and has repeatedly said that it does not want to provoke military confrontation,” said Sarah McDowall, a senior analyst at IHS Jane’s, a London-based security consultancy.

New hardware

China has advertised its long-term military ambitions with shows of new hardware, including its first test flight of the J-20 stealth fighter jet—an improvement on the J-10 jet—in early 2011. The PLA also launched a fledgling aircraft carrier in August last year.

Both trials of technologies, however, remain years from deployment.

Beijing is also building new nuclear submarines, surface ships and supersonic antiship ballistic missiles as part of its naval modernization. Cyberwarfare programs are also burgeoning.

China’s military buildup is likely to continue “unabated,” irrespective of recent US moves in Asia, the US military commander for the Asia-pacific region, Admiral Robert Willard, said on Tuesday.

Japan and China have locked horns over islands that each claims in the East China Sea. The Philippines, Vietnam and other nations have also challenged China over claims to swathes of the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) that could be rich in oil and gas.

Symbolic value

China’s defense spending was 1.28 percent of its gross domestic product in 2011, while the United States and Britain both devoted more then 2 percent of their economies to their military forces, Li said.

China’s military modernization need to be kept in perspective, said Michael Beckley, a research fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, who has studied the national strength of China and the United States.

“There’s no doubt China’s new hardware has important symbolic value and, at least in the case of the ASBM, important coercive value—the US Navy has to think twice now before getting too close to China’s shores,” Beckley said in e-mailed comments, referring to China’s antiship ballistic missile.

“But the PLA’S progress needs to be viewed in the context of China’s low level of economic development,” he added. “China’s economic weaknesses constrain its ability to produce cohesive military systems that link weapons and soldiers to sensors, satellites and command centers.”

The Pentagon estimated China’s real total military outlays in 2010 were over $160 billion, which would easily make it the world’s second biggest defense spender after the United States.

“In some areas, China is already able to put US forces at risk, and that’s all it needs,” said Rory Medcalf of the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, who specializes in Asian security.

If you look at a bigger picture than that at the aggregate force capability or the global stage, then of course the US is a long way ahead,” Medcalf added.