Rumsfeld: China understating military spending

BEIJING -- China is raising global suspicion about its military intentions by failing to acknowledge the true size of recent increases in its defense spending, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday.\nOn his first trip to China as President Bush's Pentagon chief, Rumsfeld is meeting with government officials and senior military leaders in advance of Bush's planned visit next month. A Chinese spokesman said he hoped Rumsfeld's visit "would increase his understanding" of China's policy.\nRumsfeld will speak Wednesday at the Central Party School, the Communist Party's top training center for mid-career members and its main ideological think tank. President Hu Jintao was the school's president before he became the Communist Party general secretary in 2002.\nIn an interview with reporters accompanying him from Washington, Rumsfeld said the United States and other countries would like to know why the Chinese government has understated its defense spending. He mentioned no budget figures, but the Pentagon said last summer that China may be spending $90 billion on defense this year -- three times the announced total.\n"I think it's interesting that other countries wonder why they would be increasing their defense effort at the pace they are and yet not acknowledging it," Rumsfeld said. "That is as interesting as the fact that it's increasing at the pace it is."\nAsked about Rumsfeld's comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said Beijing hopes the visit can "increase mutual understanding and trust" between the two sides.\n"We hope Rumsfeld's visit to China ... will increase his understanding of China's policy of firmly taking a peaceful road," he said.\nPresident Bush's proposed Pentagon budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 is $419 billion. Congress is still negotiating the final spending figure, and is likely to add as much as $50 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and against terror worldwide.\nRumsfeld said the U.S. government welcomes China's emergence as an economic power. But he also said that development has created "somewhat of a tension" for China's leaders as they attempt to cope with new influences and ideas that inevitably enter the country along with foreign investment.\n"China is an important country in the region; it's a country that's increasingly important in the world," he said.\nChina agreed to allow Rumsfeld to visit the headquarters of the strategic rocket forces at Qinghe, making him the first U.S. official ever to see the Second Artillery complex, according to Pentagon officials.\nThe Chinese, however, denied Rumsfeld's request to visit the Western Hills command center, an underground facility that serves as a national military command post. No foreigner is believed to have been inside Western Hills.\nRumsfeld was to meet Wednesday with the Chinese minister of defense, Gen. Cao Gangchuan.\nAfter an official greeting at the airport on Tuesday, Rumsfeld held a closed meeting with U.S. businessmen at his hotel and was attending a private reception with Chinese officials.\nIn his comments before arriving, Rumsfeld suggested that China has yet to satisfy much of the international community that it is committed to political reforms in the direction of democracy.\nAmong the topics expected to arise during his visit: tensions over Taiwan, the self-governing island that China insists on reuniting with the mainland, and U.S. encouragement for China to use its influence in six-party negotiations to end North Korea's nuclear ambitions.\nBush administration suspicions about Chinese military motives were spelled out in a report to Congress in July. In it, the Pentagon asserted that China is assembling considerable military might.\n"Analysis of Chinese military acquisitions also suggests the PLA (People's Liberation Army) is generating military capabilities that go beyond a Taiwan scenario," the report said.\nRumsfeld's visit is the third by a U.S. defense secretary in the past decade and the first since July 2000. He first visited in 1974 when he was chief of staff to President Ford.\nIn his remarks to reporters Tuesday, Rumsfeld said he would not have waited so long to accept China's repeated invitations to visit if not for the April 2001 collision of a Chinese fighter jet and a Navy EP-3 surveillance plane over international waters. The incident is said to have infuriated Rumsfeld, and the United States broke off military contacts with China for a time.\nThe Chinese pilot died, and the Navy plane was so badly damaged that it made an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island. The U.S. crew of 24 was detained for 11 days.