China's defense policy unchanged: military expert

The development of armaments with an offensive capability, like its new-generation fighter aircraft Jian-10, does not mean China has changed its national defense policy which is defensive in nature, a top military expert has said.

"China pursues a military strategy of active defense," said Yang Yi, director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University of China in a recent interview. "The development of offensive armaments is just to serve this purpose."

"China's offensive military capability is not used to offend or bully other countries," Yang said, adding that "China's military forces are used for counterattack if the country's interests are impaired, and to contain any opponents threatening military blackmail or aggression."

China's home-made new-generation fighter aircraft, the Jian-10 (Fighter-10), made its debut in Beijing on Jan. 5. The new fighter aircraft has triggered discussion of China's military threat with its capability to launch "precision attacks while hedgehopping and make long-distance assaults at altitudes above 10,000 meters."

China's military forces are not completely mechanized and computerization is limited, Yang said.

China's latest White Paper on National Defense says China pursues a three-step development strategy in modernizing its national defense and armed forces in accordance with the state's overall plan to realize modernization.

The first step is to lay a solid foundation by 2010, the second is to make major progress around 2020, and the third is to reach the strategic goal of building computerized armed forces and be capable of winning information-age wars by the mid-21st century.

Though China has more people under arms than any other country, China still lags far behind developed countries due to a long period of insufficient military input, he said.

Yang said China needs strong military forces to maintain sovereignty and territorial integrity.

China has gradually increased its defense expenditure to promote military reform with Chinese characteristics and speed up research and manufacture of new armaments, but China's defense expenditure is still much less than developed countries.

In 2005, China's defense expenditure was only 6 percent of that of the United States, 53 percent of that of the United Kingdom, 67 percent of Japan and 71 percent of France, according to China's white paper on national defense last year.

"We have succeeded with some armaments such as the Jian-10 but that does not mean that our overall combative capability has been significantly upgraded," Yang said.

In fact, many Western experts acknowledge that China's armaments are at least 20 years behind the United States and other developed Western countries.

Source: Xinhua