The US playwright Tennessee Williams once said that it was in our nature to
distrust each other, as it was our only defense against betrayal.
So it came as no surprise that some foreign quarters reacted to China's new
military budget and January's space experiment with alarm.
China says it has peaceful intentions after it revealed military spending
would this year get a 17.8 percent budget boost to 350.92 billion yuan ($45.32
billion).
Despite some analysts abroad speculating the real figure could be more, any
criticism of China needs some consideration of a few factors not limited to
double standards and politicking, with a touch of xenophobia.
Take the reaction of US Vice-President Dick Cheney for
example. 
Acknowledging China's crucial role in the Six-Party Talks with Pyongyang,
Cheney said China's recent "anti-satellite" test and military build-up was not
consistent with its stated goal of a peaceful rise.
Others like US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte have called for more
transparency.
More measured responses have come from the US Defense Secretary Robert Gates,
who said China was not a strategic adversary.
Smarter perhaps, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said it was important
to emphasize in our relations with China those practical things that we have in
common.
Howard knows that Australia's relationship with China will be vital in the
future, and any scaremongering won't do much for diplomatic relations, or more
importantly, trade.
And unlike the United States, Australia and Britain, China is not openly
engaged in any major unpopular conflicts like Iraq, an epicenter of growing
regional instability.
That said, Halliburton has made quite a business out of the US-led war on
terror.
China has about 2.3 million soldiers to feed, clothe and arm.
Notwithstanding, it also needs to overhaul its pension system for retired
personnel.
In his address at the opening of the NPC Sessions Premier Wen Jiabao said
building a solid national defense system and a powerful people's army was a
strategic task in socialist modernization.
China has successfully developed its own J10 multirole fighter aircraft and
is speculated to build its own aircraft carrier by 2010, a move perhaps that
could be considered a growing push for China to rely less on foreign technology
for its military hardware in the future. That sort of research and development
does not come cheap.
In terms of real spending, China's military expenditure in 2005 was reported
to be $30.6 billion, only 1.35 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP),
while the United States and Britain spent 4.03 percent and 2.71 percent of GDP.
Calls for China to be more transparent would be like China asking the US or
Britain for a little peek inside. There is such a thing as national security.
The West has long pushed the "Do as I say, not as I do" barrow. Whatever it
spends on its military, China, like any peaceful nation, has the right to arm
and defend itself.
(China Daily 03/17/2007 page3)
