Beijing urged to ‘demystify’ military spending: SCO formation worries Rumsfeld
SINGAPORE, June 3: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged China on Saturday to explain its increased military spending to the world, saying it was in its interest to demystify actions that others find potentially threatening.
Speaking at an international security conference in Singapore, Mr Rumsfeld said China had every right to decide how to invest its resources, but the rest of the world also needed to understand Beijing’s intentions.
“The only issue on transparency is that China would benefit by demystifying the reasons why they are investing in what they are investing in, in my view,” Mr Rumsfeld said.
A Pentagon report last month said China was spending two to three times more on its military than the 35 billion dollars a year it has acknowledged.
The report concluded that while Taiwan appears to be the near-term focus of China’s military spending, the build-up poses a potential threat to the United States over the longer term.
Mr Rumsfeld did not go as far as saying that China was a potential threat or future military rival to the US in a question and answer session with defence and security officials attending the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore.
He said he thought China’s primary objective was a peaceful reunification of Taiwan with the mainland.
But, he argued that as China’s stake in the global economy grows it will face pressure to explain its behaviour to the outside world. “In life you can’t have it both ways,” Mr Rumsfeld said.
“You can’t be successful economically and engage the rest of the world, and have people milling around your country and selling things and buying things and engaging in exchanges, and have them at the same time worried or wondering about some mystery that they see as behaviour that is unsettling,” he said.
“If the rest of the world looks at China and sees a behaviour pattern that is mysterious and potentially threatening, it tends to affect the willingness to invest,” he said.
Mr Rumsfeld also held bilateral meetings with Singapore’s Defence Minister Toe Chee Hean and Australian and Indian counterparts Brendan Nelson and Pranab Mukherjee.
Mr Mukherjee said India’s relations with China were improving but stressed the need for greater information sharing.
China was represented at the conference here by a lower level foreign ministry official, Tan Qingsheng, even though Mr Rumsfeld had urged Beijing to participate at a higher level when he visited the Chinese capital in October.
CONCERN OVER SCO:ther issues, Mr Rumsfeld expressed concern about China and Russia’s role in forming the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group of central Asian nations that has called for a withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
He said US relations with Russia are better than they have been in decades.
“But in other ways Russia has been less helpful, as when they seek to constrain the independence and freedom of action of some neighbouring countries,” he said.
He also criticised a move to admit Iran to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
“It strikes me as strange that one would want to bring into an Organisation that says it’s against terrorism ... one of the leading terrorist nations in the world — Iran,” he said.—AFP
