China Spends on Troops, Not Weapons, Says Ambassador to U.S.

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Amid growing U.S. concern about China’s nuclear and missile programs, Ambassador to the United States Zhou Wenzhong yesterday said most of Beijing’s recent military spending increase does not reflect new weapons acquisitions (see GSN, Aug. 12).

Most new spending has gone to increase troop pay, Zhou told students who packed a Georgetown University auditorium to hear him.

“Only a small percentage was spent on additional equipment,” Zhou said.

The ambassador said that despite recent increases, China’s per capita military expenditures remain “much lower” than other powers. He defended the transparency of the official military budgeting process, which U.S. officials and nongovernmental experts say applies to less than half of actual Chinese defense spending.

“China’s defense budget is open and transparent, as it’s subject to deliberation and approval by the National People’s Congress,” Zhou said.

Official Chinese military figures put defense spending this year at about $30 billion.

The U.S. Defense Department, however, said in July that China was upgrading its nuclear and missile programs and that Beijing’s military spending could reach $90 billion this year (see GSN, July 20). A week earlier, senior Chinese Gen. Zhu Chenghu had fueled U.S. concerns by saying China could use nuclear weapons in reacting to a U.S. military intervention in the dispute over Taiwan’s status (see GSN, July 15).

A leading U.S. expert on China’s military disputed Zhou’s claims in an interview today. Richard Bush, a former U.S. National Intelligence Council specialist on East Asia, said that Zhou is correct in saying China is increasing troops’ pay but dismissed the ambassador’s budget claims and warned that China is gearing up for a potential conflict with the United States.

“They are paying the troops more, but they are spending an awful lot on advanced systems, and they’re spending on advanced systems for a very specific purpose, and that is to fight a war in the Taiwan Strait,” said Bush, who directs the Brookings Institution Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies. “This is to fight a war against Taiwan and to keep the United States out of that war.”

Bush said much of China’s foreign weapons procurement does not pass through the National People’s Congress deliberation process.

“You at least double the NPC figure to get a realistic sense of what the true spending is,” Bush said.

“To get trapped into a discussion of budgetary figures is to miss the point,” he said. “The question is:  What is this money, however much it is, buying? And what can the equipment do?  And what is the training enabling China’s soldiers to do?”

Zhou said yesterday that China remains “determined” to reunite the “motherland” and reiterated Chinese calls on the United States to stop selling arms to Taiwan.

The ambassador said a meeting last month in New York between U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao “pointed the direction in which U.S.-China relations should go.”

President Bush reportedly reassured Hu that the United States does not support independence for Taiwan, while Hu reportedly vowed to focus more on reducing Chinese-U.S. tensions and on making progress in talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs.

Days later, an agreement was announced under which North Korea would end its nuclear weapons program in exchange for energy and economic aid and security guarantees.

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