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US asks China to explain military build up

2006-03-16 Sydney: The United States is concerned about China's military build-up and Beijing should make its intentions clear, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

Rice was speaking at a news conference here after meeting Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and ahead of a new trilateral security dialogue with Japan on Saturday, at which China's growing power is top of the agenda.

"We've said we have concerns about the Chinese military build-up. We've told the Chinese that they need to be transparent," she said.

"I heard there's going to be a 14 percent increase in the Chinese defence budget -- that's a lot -- and China should undertake to be transparent about what that means."

China announced earlier this month that its military budget for this year would rise 14.7 percent to 35 billion dollars, the latest in a series of double-digit annual increases dating back to the early 1990s.

Her remarks come amid a renewed rise in tensions between China and Taiwan after Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian moved to suspend an advisory council set up to look at eventual reunification with the mainland.

Beijing was infuriated by the decision, calling it a dangerous move toward Taiwan's "independence" and a threat to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.

It urged the United States, which is Taiwan's biggest military supplier, to take a harder line against Chen ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington next month.

A Pentagon report issued last year estimated that the military balance with Taiwan was tipping in Beijing's favor.

The United States wants to see China "as it grows in importance and influence, responsible in international affairs, more open, both towards its own people and towards the international system," Rice said.

The US believed the growth of the Chinese economy, "if it is done in a rules-based way in which China is fully obeying the rules of the global economy, is a very positive development for international growth and for the United States".

In an apparent effort to counter suggestions that US President George W. Bush has begun taking a more hawkish line on China, Rice added: "To the degree we have concerns, we are going to raise them.

"We're going to raise them about human rights and religious freedoms, but I think this policy has been consistent from the day the president came to Washington."

The Australian foreign minister meanwhile played down suggestions that Saturday's trilateral security dialogue with Japan could lead to a policy of containment of China.

"We've never had a concern that the United States was pursuing a policy of containment of China or something like that -- if you like, commensurate with the once-upon-a-time Cold War strategy," Downer said.

He said any such policy would be a "very big mistake" but cautioned that Beijing, as a growing power in the region, "needs to understand that brings with it a lot of responsibilities."