China says defense spending rise slows to 7.5 percent

Why is there always a doubt in your mind about what China is really saying or doing ?
Here again with another Military Budget announcement we are left wondering if they are telling the truth !


Reuters
China kept the rise in its military budget to 7.5 percent in 2010, a spokesman said on Thursday, a slowdown that left observers skeptical after an increase in tensions with the United States.
Some foreign analysts were surprised by the figure after more than two decades of nearly unbroken double-digit rises in China's defense budget, and said the announced numbers were unlikely to show the growing power's real military spending.

"All the evidence suggests that they are on a very powerful trajectory of expansion in substantive terms, and they seem to use this figure for political purposes almost, to send signals," said Ron Huisken, a China defense expert at the Australian National University in Canberra.

The announcement came after quarrels with the United States over human rights, Internet censorship, Tibet and Washington's arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.

Chinese parliamentary spokesman Li Zhaoxing said the increase would bring the country's defense budget for the year to 532.1 billion yuan ($77.95 billion), or 37.1 billion yuan more than what was actually spent on defense in 2009.

The budget for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) showed Beijing was not seeking confrontation, Li told a news conference a day ahead of the opening of China's annual parliament, or National People's Congress.

China has 2.3 million personnel in its armed forces, more than any other nation. The government has sought to slim numbers and lift troop quality by offering better benefits.

"I think the (Chinese) armed forces will be dissatisfied," Ikuo Kayahara, a retired Japanese major-general who teaches security studies at Takushoku University, said.

"The world has been criticizing China for increasing its defense budget by more than 10 percent every year," he said. "China may be reacting to this by trying to show that it is not focused only on expanding its armed forces."