China dismisses Pentagon report

BEIJING -- The Chinese government insists its defense policy is just that -- defensive. A Communist Party newspaper dismisses a Pentagon report raising alarms about the country's military spending as "a wild guess."

Though the United States is worrying about a buildup of mainland China's armed forces and its predatory attitude toward Taiwan, experts say a militaristic China is unlikely: Beijing leaders are focused on economic progress.

"The leaders know the only way to keep power is economic growth. War -- or any militarization of the region -- will prevent foreign capital from coming to China," said Reimund Seidelmann, a China military expert at the University of Giessen in Germany.

China, eager for global acceptance, takes pains to cast itself as an unthreatening nation simply trying to make its "socialist market economy" succeed. It says military progress is natural for a vast nation struggling to modernize.

Yet in March it announced a nearly 18 percent increase in defense spending to $20 billion. Some People's Liberation Army delegates to the National People's Congress said that was not enough to modernize outdated equipment.

'Peace-loving country'

Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan, quoted by official media Monday, said China's defense budget is the lowest among the world's major countries. China, Kong emphasized, shuns the global arms race.

"China is a peace-loving country whose national defense policy is defensive," Kong said.

The Pentagon report, submitted Friday to Congress, disagreed. It said China is spending far more on defense than it acknowledges -- up to $80 billion -- with more big increases probable in coming years.

The report "affirms what most Chinese already believe about the Bush administration: that it's got a much tougher attitude, a more confrontational approach to dealing with China," said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.

A Communist Party newspaper dismissed the Pentagon report as "a wild guess."

Taiwan vulnerable

The report focused on what it called the vulnerability of Taiwan to an attack by the mainland and said preparation for conflict in the Taiwan Strait "is the primary driver for China's military modernization."

Though Taiwan operates as a sovereign nation, Beijing considers it part of the mainland and has never ruled out retaking it by force.

The United States has no official diplomatic relations with the island but is its main arms supplier and is committed to helping in its defense -- a galling notion to China, which calls the Taiwan issue the single most important sticking point in China-U.S. relations.

On Monday, Kong said he hoped the United States would "stop sending wrong signals to separatists in Taiwan province."

Last month, China reportedly tested an air-to-air missile and acquired eight missile-armed Russian submarines, giving Beijing additional military capabilities in the Taiwan Strait.

But the Chinese leadership -- itself poised for a generational change this year and next -- has made clear that its priority is the economy. China's accession to the World Trade Organization last year makes that goal even more high-profile, and the last thing Beijing wants to do is alienate or frighten foreign investors.

"The Chinese do not want to use force. But if they don't build it up, it becomes much more difficult for them to deter the Taiwanese," said Steve Tsang, director of the Asian studies program at Oxford University's St. Antony's College.

"It doesn't mean they are planning to invade Taiwan. But if the leadership asks them to deal with Taiwan, the PLA (the army) has to be ready."

Since Sept. 11, China-U.S. relations have been relatively smooth. Thus, reaction to the Pentagon report in the Chinese media was prickly -- but hardly the whipped-up outrage that state-controlled media can summon when the government wants to admonish Washington.

On Monday, the Global Times, a twice-weekly tabloid published by the Communist Party that focuses on international affairs, scoffed at the Pentagon report as "a wild guess and suspicion."

"The people who wrote the report do not understand the real situation in China," the newspaper said. "Since Sept. 11, Sino-U.S. relations are stable. This is not what American hard-liners want to see. They fabricated a 'Chinese threat' before, and they're reiterating it now."