Rumsfeld said he does not think any country threatens China and that the United States does not see China as a threat.
U.S. at War With Beijing, Reports Cite China as No. 1 Threat
Both the Pentagon and the Commission on U.S-China Economic and Security Review cited Beijing as a major threat to U.S. national security. The two reports noted the growing military capability of China combined with its predatory economic policy is aimed directly at the United States. #msg-3379438
Singapore PM: Containing China is short-sighted (chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2005-06-04 11:32
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong cautioned at an annual international security conference on Friday the effort by some countries to contain a growing China is short-sighted and will fail in the end.
However, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the forum held in Singapore that Beijing spends too much on its military buildup, risking a military balance in the Asia-Pacific region, which is now dominated by Pentagon and its allies.
Lee, in an opening speech late Friday, said that "a strategy of confronting China will incur its enmity without seriously blocking its growth, while any attempt to contain China will have few takers in the (Asian) region".
China's government earlier this year announced a 12.6 percent increase in military spending to 244.7 billion yuan, or roughly 30 billion US dollars. The United States by comparison spent 430 billion on defense in 2004.
Though China's military expenditure is about one fifteenth of the Pentagon's, Rumsfeld deemed it was too much.
"Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: why this growing investment? Rumsfeld asked.
Beijing is concerned that a rising sale of advanced weapons by the Pentagon to Taiwan will drive the island's leader Chen Shui-bian to tilt towards formal independence, hurting China's cherished goal of an eventual, peaceful reunification with Taiwan.
Also, the United States and its ally Japan have threatened the European Union with sanctions if EU lifts a 16-year-old arms ban on China.
Analysts said that Rumsfeld's remarks reflected the uneasiness of Pentagon about Beijing's push for military build-up backed by a rapid growing economy.
"China appears to be expanding its missile forces, allowing it to reach targets in many areas of the world. China also is improving its ability to project power, and is developing advanced systems of military technology," Rumsfeld said.
However, the Pentagon chief also said a rising China with increasing world influence is a matter of fact. "China's emergence is an important new reality of this era -- one that the countries of the region would no doubt like to embrace," he said.
"Indeed, the world would welcome a China committed to peaceful solutions and whose industrious and well-educated people contribute to international peace and prosperity."
In the meantime, Rumsfeld made it clear that the Pentagon expects to strengthen military ties with Asia's other rising power, India.
China Preparing To Open Arms Industry To Private Investment: Report
Beijing (AFP) Jun 07, 2005 China is preparing to open its arms industry to private and foreign investment to take advantage of the private sector's resources to modernize its military, state media said Tuesday. The move will be "historic" as it will open up a tightly-guarded state monopoly to civilian companies to do weapons research and development, the China Daily said in a commentary.
Under a new policy of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence effective June 15, private and foreign-funded ventures will be treated equally as state firms in bidding for licences to develop certain categories of weaponry, the report said.
"With the go-ahead from regulators, China's private businesses are making inroads into one of the last 'bridgeheads' of state monopoly, developing weapons for national defence," the editorial said.
The commission announced late last month that it will issue around 300 weapons development and production licences in the second half of this year to suppliers, including private enterprises, to produce weapons considered "sub-systems" or "special auxiliary products."
The move is aimed at mobilizing the country's talent and resources to help its military.
"Those in the IT and new materials sectors ... have expertise that few state military industrial firms can ever match," the editorial said.
Allowing private companies to enter the arms sector will also help make state-owned players more competitive by subjecting them to competition, said the paper.
China, however, must ensure the private sector provides quality weapons and that they will keep state secrets, it added.
The commission is expected to come up with specific guidelines on which weapons or equipment programmes might be open to outside suppliers.
Government departments will also have to change the rules once tailored exclusively to state-owned military industries, such as rules giving only state firms preferential tax treatment.
Such revisions will take place "very soon" the report cited an official with the commission as saying.
China earlier this year announced a 12.6 percent increase in military spending to 244.65 billion yuan, or 29.5 billion dollars, but the real figure is believed to be much higher.
Secret report says US intelligence missed Chinese military buildup
WASHINGTON (AFP) Jun 09, 2005 A highly classified report said US intelligence agencies had failed to recognize more than a dozen key military developments in China in the past decade, The Washington Times said Thursday.
The report, drawn up by current and former intelligence officials, blames Chinese secrecy for part of the failures, but also US intelligence agents for not gathering solid information on the Chinese military and for not planting agents in the communist government, officials familiar with the report told the daily.
The study, parts of which will be included in the Pentagon's annual report to Congress on the Chinese military to be released later this month, highlighted intelligence failures to notice the following aspects of China's military buildup:
- The development of a new long-range cruise missile, and of a new warship equipped with a stolen Chinese version of the US Aegis battle management technology.
- The deployment of a new attack submarine known as the Yuan class; of precision-guided munitions, including new air-to-ground missiles and new, more accurate warheads; of surface-to-surface missiles.
- The importation of advanced weaponry, including Russian submarines, warships and fighter-bombers.
The secret report, produced for the new director of national intellingence John Negroponte -- the position was created by Congress in December, appears to unfairly target intelligence operators, its critics said, to exonerate intelligence analysts, who for the past 10 years dismissed or played down intelligence on China's military buildup.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, during an annual international security conference in Singapore on Saturday, said China appeared to be expanding its missile forces, "allowing them to reach targets in many areas of the world".
"China also is improving its ability to project power, and is developing advanced systems of military technology," he said.
"Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: why this growing investment? Why these continuing large weapons purchases?"
He said the soon-to-be-released Pentagon study concludes that China's defense budget is now the largest in Asia and third largest in the world.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Tuesday rejected Rumsfeld's claims as "totally groundless," saying the small increases in Chinese defence spending in recent years was dedicated mostly "for the improvement of the living conditions of the officers and soldiers."
"China has not the intention nor the capability to drastically increase its military buildup," said Liu Jianchao.
China's Military Buildup A Concern, Not A Threat: Rice
We just take note of the fact that there is a significant military buildup going on, ... that we have concerns about the military balance and of course that the United States continues to modernize its own forces so that we can continue to be a force for stability and peace in this region."
China and Russia are also modernizing their militaries to be forces of stability and peace in the region.
We’ve already labeled China not only a threat but our number one threat.
U.S. at War With Beijing, Reports Cite China as No. 1 Threat
Both the Pentagon and the Commission on U.S-China Economic and Security Review cited Beijing as a major threat to U.S. national security. The two reports noted the growing military capability of China combined with its predatory economic policy is aimed directly at the United States. #msg-3379438
And if China is not a threat why are we threatening them? #msg-6571509
Beyond the nukes we have pointed at China looms the oil card.
The one power in Eurasia that has the potential to create a strategic combination which could checkmate US global dominance is China. However, China has an Achilles' heel, which Washington understands all too well - oil. Ten years ago China was a net oil exporter. Today China is the second-largest importer behind the US.
Washington policy now encompasses a series of "democratic" or soft coup projects which would strategically cut China off from access to the vital oil and gas reserves of the Caspian, including Kazakhstan. The earlier Asian Great Silk Road trade routes went through Tashkent in Uzbekistan and Almaty in Kazakhstan for geographically obvious reasons, in a region surrounded by major mountain ranges. #msg-6825938
-Am
China's Military Buildup A Concern, Not A Threat: Rice
Beijing (AFP) Jul 10, 2005 The United States is concerned about China's "significant" military buildup, but that does not mean it sees Beijing as a threat, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday. "There is no doubt that we have concerns about the size and pace of the Chinese military buildup and it's not just the Pentagon. I've made clear to people this is a view held by the US government," Rice told reporters.
"This does not mean that we view China as 'a threat'," she said after meeting with Chinese officials on the first leg of a four-nation Asia tour.
"We just take note of the fact that there is a significant military buildup going on, ... that we have concerns about the military balance and of course that the United States continues to modernize its own forces so that we can continue to be a force for stability and peace in this region."
Rice said she raised the issue of the impact of China's military buildup on the regional military balance during meetings with Chinese leaders.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned earlier this year that China was spending considerably more on its military than officially acknowledged and asked why it had so many missiles aimed at Taiwan. The United States is bound by US law to help defend Taiwan.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory awaiting reunification and has threatened to retake it by force if it moves towards formal independence. The island has ruled itself since splitting from the mainland after a civil war in
Taiwan's defense ministry says China has deployed at least 700 ballistic missiles along its southeastern coast just opposite the island, and the number could rise to 800 before the end of 2006.
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