The PLA's tough message to Barack Obama on his Inauguration Day
Thursday, January 29, 2009 E-Mail this story Free Headline Alerts
The following is excerpted from the weekly "Inside China" column by Willy Lam in the Jan. 21 edition of East-Asia-Intel.com.
The PeopleÕs Liberation Army has vowed to pursue a leap forward in weaponry to close the gap with advanced countries, including the United States.
In a press conference coinciding with President ObamaÕs inauguration, Ministry of Defense spokesmen also called upon the U.S. to Òremove obstaclesÓ that inhibit military-to-military ties between the two countries.
While the Chinese economy has been hard hit by sharp decreases of exports to the U.S. and Europe, PLA officers are lobbying for budget boosts at least on par with the 17.6 percent that the forces received last year. The centerpiece of the Defense White Paper 2008, also released Tuesday, was that the PLA could not afford to slow down military modernization and combat-readiness due to both external and internal threats.
ÒWe have made big strides in raising the levels of armaments,Ó said Senior Col. Fan Jianjun of the PLA General Armaments Department at the press event. ÒBut thereÕs still quite a large gap with the levels of the worldÕs developed countries, and we still cannot fully adjust to the needs of protecting national security and unity and better fulfilling our international duties.Ó
The white paper put ChinaÕs defense expenditures in 2007 at 355.5 billion Yuan (around $51 billion), or 7.5 percent of U.S. military spending for the same year. Moreover, the countryÕs military outlay in 2007 represented only 1.38 percent of GDP, compared with 4.5 percent for the U.S.
However, Western experts on the PLA have noted that ChinaÕs real defense budget is at least three times the publicized figure. Moreover, most PLA units are able to utilize R&D facilities in supposedly civilian departments that deal with aviation, aeronautics and electronics.
Defense Ministry spokesmen claimed that China could not afford to slow down modernization of weaponry because it had to fight ÒcontainmentÓ Ñ a code word for threats coming from the U.S. and such Asian allies as Japan Ñ as well as pro-independence movements in Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang.
The spokesmen also noted that some of the newly developed weapons would star in a huge military parade scheduled for Oct. 1, which marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PeopleÕs Republic.
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