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Singapore PM: Containing China short-sighted
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2005-06-04 11:32

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong cautioned at an annual international security conference on Friday the effort by some countries to contain a growing China is short-sighted and will fail in the end.

However, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the forum held in Singapore that Beijing spends too much on its military buildup, risking a military balance in the Asia-Pacific region, which is now dominated by Pentagon and its allies.

Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong speaks during an annual meeting of regional defense ministers in Singapore on Friday June 3, 2005. [AP]

Lee, in an opening speech late Friday, said that "a strategy of confronting China will incur its enmity without seriously blocking its growth, while any attempt to contain China will have few takers in the (Asian) region".

China's government earlier this year announced a 12.6 percent increase in military spending to 244.7 billion yuan, or roughly 30 billion US dollars. The United States by comparison spent 430 billion on defense in 2004.

Though China's military expenditure is about one fifteenth of the Pentagon's, Rumsfeld deemed it was too much.

"Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: why this growing investment? Rumsfeld asked.

Beijing is concerned that a rising sale of advanced weapons by the Pentagon to Taiwan will drive the island's leader Chen Shui-bian to tilt towards formal independence, hurting China's cherished goal of an eventual, peaceful reunification with Taiwan.

Also, the United States and its ally Japan have threatened the European Union with sanctions if EU lifts a 16-year-old arms ban on China.

Analysts said that Rumsfeld's remarks reflected the uneasiness of Pentagon about Beijing's push for military build-up backed by a rapid growing economy.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gestures as he chats with dignitaries before a dinner at a meeting of defence ministers from around the world in Singapore June 3, 2005.[AP]

"China appears to be expanding its missile forces, allowing it to reach targets in many areas of the world. China also is improving its ability to project power, and is developing advanced systems of military technology," Rumsfeld said.

However, the Pentagon chief also said a rising China with increasing world influence is a matter of fact. "China's emergence is an important new reality of this era -- one that the countries of the region would no doubt like to embrace," he said.

"Indeed, the world would welcome a China committed to peaceful solutions and whose industrious and well-educated people contribute to international peace and prosperity."

In the meantime, Rumsfeld made it clear that the Pentagon expects to strengthen military ties with Asia's other rising power, India.

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