China Masking Huge Military Buildup

By Robert Maginnis, Human Events

Red Alert: China is sending misleading messages about its massive military buildup.

Last week China’s Communist regime published the every-second-year edition of its defense white paper, “China’s National Defense in 2010,” which claims to promote transparency in its defense planning and deepen international trust, and asserts that its security policy is defensive in nature. But the paper’s messages are not supported by the facts.

Consider five of the many misleading messages imbedded in the 30-page defense white paper.

First, “China attaches great importance to military transparency,” the paper claims. The Pentagon takes issue with that view in a report, stating, “The limited transparency in China’s military and security affairs enhances uncertainty and increases the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation.”

China fails the transparency test by understating its defense spending. The Pentagon’s 2010 report on China’s military estimates Beijing’s total military-related spending for 2009 was more than $150 billion, but the white paper claims it spent about half that amount, $75.56 billion (495.11 billion RMB). The difference, according to the Pentagon, is due to the fact that China’s defense budget “does not include major categories of expenditure,” but the report fails to identify those categories.

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