PLA officer: Defense spending not to hamper US

Luo Yuan, a major general with the Academy of Military Sciences
An outspoken military thinker said Wednesday in Beijing that rise in China's defense spending and modernization of its forces will not pose a danger to the United States.

The country's military development shall not challenge Pentagon, asserted Luo Yuan, a major general with the Academy of Military Sciences, who is also a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) which convened Wednesday in Beijing.

"China is the only permanent member of the UN Security Council that has not achieved territorial integrity," said Luo, meaning Taiwan is not yet unified with the mainland.

"We need to think more on how to preserve national integrity. We have no intention of challenging the US," Luo told reporters.


"The China Dream", written by Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu.
Luo's remarks came as response to Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu, who recently said in his newly published book -- "The China Dream" -- that China should build the world's strongest military.

"That's just his ambition," Luo said.

"China's big goal in the 21st century is to become the world's No 1, the top power," Liu wrote in his book.

Liu's 303-page book stands out for its boldness in a recent chorus of strong voices demanding a hard shove back against Washington over the US' arms sale to Taiwan, the Beijing-based China Daily reported in a frond-page article on Thursday.

However, Zhao Qizheng, spokesman for the CPPCC, said China's military power does not threaten other countries, including the powerful United States.

"China's defense spending was just about 1.4 or 1.5 percent of the country's GDP in recent years. US defense spending was more than 4 percent of its GDP, which is three times as big as China's," Zhao said Tuesday to packed reporters at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

China's military budget in 2009 was 480 billion yuan ( about $70 billion). Zhao said only a third of China's military spending went into research, development and purchase of new weapons.

US military spending, by contrast, stands out at nearly $500 billion a year, according to the Washington-based Center for Defense Information.

"China's development does not aim at challenging any other country. China does not aim to change the current international system either," the China Daily quoted another anonymous PLA officer as saying.

Even though he admitted that Beijing has "all the necessary" sophisticated weapons, "we cannot compare with the US in terms of quantity".

"Personally, I do not agree with big talks by some scholars, (which) could only misdirect China's national image," the PLA officer said. "We should do more, while speak less."

People's Daily Online