Tweet
contracts abroad are only as good as the force available to underwrite them . . .
Continuing Buildup, China Boosts Military Spending More Than 11 Percent
By JANE PERLEZ
BEIJING — China announced a double-digit increase in military spending Sunday, a rise that comes amid an intensifying strategic rivalry between the United States and China in Asia and concerns in Washington about the secrecy surrounding the Chinese defense budget.
The increase, reported at 11.2 percent, is in step with the increased pace of military spending by China over the past decade, but the official statement did not give details of what weapons systems China is developing or offer a description of military strategy beyond protection of the country’s sovereignty. And China analysts say the true figure is probably significantly higher, underreported because much of the military’s decision-making is kept opaque.
Washington has pressed China to be more forthcoming about its military intentions, an openness that the Americans say is necessary in order to ease growing unease in a region where the United States maintains important alliances and treaty obligations.
President Obama declared in November that American military interests in the Asia-Pacific region would be immune from cuts in the Pentagon budget, a commitment that was interpreted in Beijing as an inimical response to China’s growing power.
For its part, China, heavily dependent on imported energy, has shown that it wants greater control of the sea lanes off its coast and wants to protect its heavily populated, increasingly wealthy cities on its eastern rim.
This strategy along China’s periphery, known in Washington as “anti-access, area denial” has in turn prompted calls at the Pentagon for new weapons systems that can overcome China’s eventual capabilities in its coastal waters.
The spokesman of the National People’s Congress, Li Zhaoxing, said at a news conference on Sunday, a day before its annual conclave, that the military spending increase was in line with Chinese economic development. He added that, as a percentage of gross domestic product compared with other countries, specifically the United States and Britain, the increase was relatively low.
The total defense budget for 2012 would be increased to $106 billion from $95.6 billion last year, he said. The Obama administration’s proposed defense spending for 2013 calls for a budget of $525.4 billion, a cut of about $5 billion from 2012.
Although Mr. Li said the budget covered research and development, and new weapons systems as well as personnel costs, Western and Chinese analysts say the announcement represents an undercounting of the real expenditure.
The Chinese Navy, Air Force and the Second Artillery Corps, which runs the strategic nuclear forces, benefit most from the increased defense spending, experts in both countries say.
Among the navy’s acquisitions are a new class of nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine and more sophisticated radar systems that allow for improved over-the-horizon targeting capability, according to the Pentagon’s 2011 report to Congress on the Chinese military.
Vital elements of the Chinese military build up, including cyberwarfare and space capabilities, and foreign procurements were not included in the announced budget, the analysts said.
Because of the opaqueness of the Chinese military system and secrecy about the workings of the uppermost military body, the Central Military Commission, the real expenditures were not known, they said.
Last year, the Pentagon estimated China would spend $160 billion instead of the announced $95.6 billion.
But given the dearth of information the Pentagon’s estimates of Chinese military spending were probably not reliable, according to Dennis Blasko, a former U.S. Army attaché at the American embassy in Beijing.
“Whatever the true numbers may be, the Chinese military has a much larger pot of cash to spend on fewer troops than it did 15 years ago,” said Mr. Blasko, the author of “The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century.” Overall, he said, China’s defense spending continued to be in line with the economic growth rates.
During the visit to Washington last month by Vice President Xi Jinping, who is likely to be the next leader of China, the Obama administration specifically asked for greater transparency in the Chinese military budget and for deeper communication between the two militaries, administration officials said.
Mr. Xi, who is one of two civilian members of the Central Military Commission, appeared to recognize the significance of Washington’s concern.
In remarks at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at his side, Mr. Xi said he looked forward to exchanging views on the “overall relationship but especially our mil-to-mil relationship,” shorthand for military to military.
In an effort to coax the Chinese military toward more openness, Washington started formal talks known as a strategic security dialogue, last year. They were attended by senior civilian and military officials from Beijing and Washington, Obama administration officials said.
The results were meager, but the administration was pushing for another round of the dialogue to take place in several months, the officials said.
Some Chinese analysts back the idea of more clarity and greater contact between the two defense establishments.
“China needs more transparency in explaining to others,” said Chu Shulong, professor of international relations at the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University. “China is aiming to deny the capability of possible American intervention in the Western Pacific. That has been clear since 1996.”
He described the Chinese military as fearful of overhauls, but said a public explanation of military strategy was necessary because “if you are not clear to others they have suspicions.”
In Washington, anxieties were driven in part by the fact that unlike the cold war period when grainy satellite images were the main source of information, Chinese Web sites were filled with striking images of new weaponry, said Jonathan D. Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
The new hardware was being displayed at a time when there was a mounting gap between China’s rising military expenditure and slowing spending by other countries in the region, many of them American allies.
This reinforced the realization that in the future, the United States might not remain the singularly dominant power in the Asia-Pacific area if Chinese military spending kept escalating, he said.
“The deeper American concern is a mirror image of what Albright said to Powell in the mid-’90s: what’s the point of all this equipment if you’re not going to use it?” Mr. Pollack said, referring to an argument over American involvement in Bosnia between the then-Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, and Gen. Colin L. Powell.
At the news conference Sunday, Mr. Li said that China had sent 2,044 peacekeepers to 12 trouble spots around the world last year, reflecting a bigger role by China in quelling conflict zones, a development that the Obama administration has lauded.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/wo...ef=global-home
Continuing Buildup, China Boosts Military Spending More Than 11 Percent
By JANE PERLEZ
BEIJING — China announced a double-digit increase in military spending Sunday, a rise that comes amid an intensifying strategic rivalry between the United States and China in Asia and concerns in Washington about the secrecy surrounding the Chinese defense budget.
The increase, reported at 11.2 percent, is in step with the increased pace of military spending by China over the past decade, but the official statement did not give details of what weapons systems China is developing or offer a description of military strategy beyond protection of the country’s sovereignty. And China analysts say the true figure is probably significantly higher, underreported because much of the military’s decision-making is kept opaque.
Washington has pressed China to be more forthcoming about its military intentions, an openness that the Americans say is necessary in order to ease growing unease in a region where the United States maintains important alliances and treaty obligations.
President Obama declared in November that American military interests in the Asia-Pacific region would be immune from cuts in the Pentagon budget, a commitment that was interpreted in Beijing as an inimical response to China’s growing power.
For its part, China, heavily dependent on imported energy, has shown that it wants greater control of the sea lanes off its coast and wants to protect its heavily populated, increasingly wealthy cities on its eastern rim.
This strategy along China’s periphery, known in Washington as “anti-access, area denial” has in turn prompted calls at the Pentagon for new weapons systems that can overcome China’s eventual capabilities in its coastal waters.
The spokesman of the National People’s Congress, Li Zhaoxing, said at a news conference on Sunday, a day before its annual conclave, that the military spending increase was in line with Chinese economic development. He added that, as a percentage of gross domestic product compared with other countries, specifically the United States and Britain, the increase was relatively low.
The total defense budget for 2012 would be increased to $106 billion from $95.6 billion last year, he said. The Obama administration’s proposed defense spending for 2013 calls for a budget of $525.4 billion, a cut of about $5 billion from 2012.
Although Mr. Li said the budget covered research and development, and new weapons systems as well as personnel costs, Western and Chinese analysts say the announcement represents an undercounting of the real expenditure.
The Chinese Navy, Air Force and the Second Artillery Corps, which runs the strategic nuclear forces, benefit most from the increased defense spending, experts in both countries say.
Among the navy’s acquisitions are a new class of nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine and more sophisticated radar systems that allow for improved over-the-horizon targeting capability, according to the Pentagon’s 2011 report to Congress on the Chinese military.
Vital elements of the Chinese military build up, including cyberwarfare and space capabilities, and foreign procurements were not included in the announced budget, the analysts said.
Because of the opaqueness of the Chinese military system and secrecy about the workings of the uppermost military body, the Central Military Commission, the real expenditures were not known, they said.
Last year, the Pentagon estimated China would spend $160 billion instead of the announced $95.6 billion.
But given the dearth of information the Pentagon’s estimates of Chinese military spending were probably not reliable, according to Dennis Blasko, a former U.S. Army attaché at the American embassy in Beijing.
“Whatever the true numbers may be, the Chinese military has a much larger pot of cash to spend on fewer troops than it did 15 years ago,” said Mr. Blasko, the author of “The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century.” Overall, he said, China’s defense spending continued to be in line with the economic growth rates.
During the visit to Washington last month by Vice President Xi Jinping, who is likely to be the next leader of China, the Obama administration specifically asked for greater transparency in the Chinese military budget and for deeper communication between the two militaries, administration officials said.
Mr. Xi, who is one of two civilian members of the Central Military Commission, appeared to recognize the significance of Washington’s concern.
In remarks at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at his side, Mr. Xi said he looked forward to exchanging views on the “overall relationship but especially our mil-to-mil relationship,” shorthand for military to military.
In an effort to coax the Chinese military toward more openness, Washington started formal talks known as a strategic security dialogue, last year. They were attended by senior civilian and military officials from Beijing and Washington, Obama administration officials said.
The results were meager, but the administration was pushing for another round of the dialogue to take place in several months, the officials said.
Some Chinese analysts back the idea of more clarity and greater contact between the two defense establishments.
“China needs more transparency in explaining to others,” said Chu Shulong, professor of international relations at the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University. “China is aiming to deny the capability of possible American intervention in the Western Pacific. That has been clear since 1996.”
He described the Chinese military as fearful of overhauls, but said a public explanation of military strategy was necessary because “if you are not clear to others they have suspicions.”
In Washington, anxieties were driven in part by the fact that unlike the cold war period when grainy satellite images were the main source of information, Chinese Web sites were filled with striking images of new weaponry, said Jonathan D. Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
The new hardware was being displayed at a time when there was a mounting gap between China’s rising military expenditure and slowing spending by other countries in the region, many of them American allies.
This reinforced the realization that in the future, the United States might not remain the singularly dominant power in the Asia-Pacific area if Chinese military spending kept escalating, he said.
“The deeper American concern is a mirror image of what Albright said to Powell in the mid-’90s: what’s the point of all this equipment if you’re not going to use it?” Mr. Pollack said, referring to an argument over American involvement in Bosnia between the then-Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, and Gen. Colin L. Powell.
At the news conference Sunday, Mr. Li said that China had sent 2,044 peacekeepers to 12 trouble spots around the world last year, reflecting a bigger role by China in quelling conflict zones, a development that the Obama administration has lauded.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/wo...ef=global-home