By KUNA
Tokyo : China maintains a limited military power only to secure the nation’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and won’t pose a threat to any country, the government has said, state-controlled Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday.
China has persisted in the “coordinated development” of national defense and economic growth, and raised military spending “moderately” with the backdrop of rapid economic development and growing fiscal revenue, Liao Xilong, director of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Logistics Department, told Xinhua.
“A rise of defense budget can help match the building of defense infrastructure with the manifold missions entrusted to the armed forces, Liao was quoted as saying.
Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for the First Session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, revealed on Tuesday that the nation plans to increase its defense budget by 17.6 percent to CNY 417.769 billion (USD 57.229 billion, using the end-2007 exchange rate), in 2008.
Liao, who is also a member of the Central Military Commission, explained that the defense budget is raised to increase subsidies for soldiers and officers so that their life can be improved at the same pace with that of civilians.
He pointed out that China’s military spending remains a low level compared with some other countries, especially the big powers, in the ratio against gross domestic product (GDP).
China’s military, with 2 million soldiers, had an expenditure which comes to only 1.4 percent of its GDP in 2007, the lowest compared with 4.6 percent in the US, 3 percent in Britain, 2 percent in France, 2.63 percent in Russia, and 2.5 percent in India.
On Monday, the US Defense Department expressed concern about China’s double-digit defense outlay increase for the 20th year in a row, warning it lacks transparency in the military expenditure and is posing a threat to regional and international stability.
The Pentagon also said in its annual report that Beijing spent as much as USD 139 billion upgrading its military last year, about three times more than it publicly announced.