Posted on 06/06/2006 8:05:24 AM PDT by snowrip
China should pump up its military spending to safeguard national security because of the danger of Taiwan declaring independence, a government think-tank academic said yesterday.
China does not spend enough money on defence, considering the rapid growth of its economy, the official China News Service quoted Mr Hu Angang, director of the Centre for China Studies at the prestigious Qinghua University, as saying.
Mr Hu said: 'China should further increase the percentage of national defence spending, given the fact that China has not been truly unified and faces the possible danger of Taiwan's independence.'
China's military spending was officially about US$30 billion (S$47 billion) last year, a 12.6 per cent rise on the previous year, but many foreign experts believe the real figure could be significantly higher.
Last month, China reacted angrily to a US report which voiced concern over Beijing's military build-up and soaring budget.
China has never given up the use of force as an option to reunify Taiwan, an island of 23 million people, which has ruled itself since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
'China's military build-up has greatly lagged behind the development of the economy, so that national defence construction has not been in accord with the economy's development,' Mr Hu said.
Washington has been raising alarms over Beijing's defence modernisation for several years. The annual Pentagon report on China's military power said Beijing had yet to adequately explain the purposes of its military expansion.
But China insists that its military poses no security threat and that it spends less on defence as a share of its economy than many Western countries do, including the United States.
China puts its military spending at about 1.4 per cent of GDP, but Western experts say it could be as high as 2.8 per cent.
I think I might just have a heart attack if an American academic says that the USA should spend more on its military.
China already spends a lot on dressing up its troops in color-coordinated parade uniforms. They are good at ceremony.
How is Taiwan's independence a "danger" to China?
I dunno. Was the Confederacy a danger to the Union?
Good point, but a more accurate comparison would be to Puerto Rico.
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