China preparing for armed conflict 'in every direction'
China is preparing for conflict 'in every direction', the defence minister said on Wednesday in remarks that threaten to overshadow a visit to Beijing by his US counterpart next month.
"In the coming five years, our military will push forward preparations
for military conflict in every strategic direction," said Liang
Guanglie in an interview published by several state-backed newspapers in China.
"We may be living in peaceful times, but we can never forget war, never
send the horses south or put the bayonets and guns away," Mr Liang
added.
China repeatedly says it is planning a "peaceful rise" but the
recent pace and scale of its military modernisation has alarmed many of its
neighbours in the Asia-Pacific, including Japan which described China's
military build-up as a "global concern" this month.
Mr Liang's remarks come at a time of increasingly difficult relations between
the Chinese and US armed forces which a three-day visit by his counterpart
Robert Gates is intended to address. A year ago China froze substantive
military relations in protest at US arms sales to Taiwan and relations
deteriorated further this summer when China objected to US plans to deploy
one of its nuclear supercarriers, the USS George Washington, into the Yellow
Sea off the Korean peninsula.
China also announced this month that it was preparing to launch its own
aircraft carrier next year in a signal that China is determined to punch its
weight as a rising superpower. The news came a year earlier than many US
defence analysts had predicted.
China is also working on a "carrier-killing" ballistic missile that
could sink US carriers from afar, fundamentally reordering the balance of
power in a region that has been dominated by the US since the end of the
Second World War.
A US Navy commander, Admiral Robert Willard, told Japan's Asahi Shimbun
newspaper this week that he believes the Chinese anti-ship missile, the Dong
Feng 21, has already achieved "initial operational capability",
although it would require years of testing.
Analysts remain divided over whether China is initiating an Asian arms race.
Even allowing for undeclared spending, China's annual defence budget is
still less than one-sixth of America's $663bn a year, or less than half the
US figure when expressed as a percentage of GDP.
However in a speech earlier this year Mr Gates warned that China's new
weapons, including its carrier-killing missile, "threaten America's
primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific",
underscoring the difficulties that lie ahead as China and the US seek to
contain growing strategic frictions.
As China modernises, Mr Liang pledged that its armed forces would also
increasingly use homegrown Chinese technology, which analysts say still lags
behind Western technology even as China races to catch up.
"The modernisation of the Chinese military cannot depend on others, and
cannot be bought," Mr Liang added, "In the next five years, our
economy and society will develop faster, boosting comprehensive national
power. We will take the opportunity and speed up modernisation of the
military."
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