Xu Qinduo

    xuqinduo@gmail.com

    CHINA has announced an annual growth of 7.6 percent in the 2016 defense budget, which equals some 954 billion yuan (US$146 billion). The moderate growth rate — the lowest in six years — surprised many, in particular many Western observers, who forecasted a spending splurge of 20 percent or even 30 percent.

    Chinese defense spending, despite the eye-catching double-digit growth in most of the years since the beginning of the new century, has been an outcome of rational consideration or calculation. The yearly growth percentage for the defense budget always has a strong correlation with the pace of economic expansion as well as the total national expenditure. For example, the annual military spending over the past 10 years has hovered around 5 to 7 percent of national revenue.

    A more accurate figure is the rather stable ratio of military spending against Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It has been between 1.25 percent and 1.5 percent, much lower compared to 4 percent of the GDP in the U.S.

    The Chinese economy is currently in the process of a painful transformation from an export-driven growth model to one relying more on domestic consumption. And the pace of growth slowed to 6.9 percent last year. More importantly, government revenue in 2015 grew more than 3 percentage points less than the previous year.

    If your growth is sluggish, you can’t afford to have a large-scale military buildup. At least, not a sustainable one.

    Behind the relatively stable growth in military expenditures lies Beijing’s high degree of self-restraint after drawing a lesson from the collapse of the former Soviet Union. One of the main causes behind the disintegration of the Soviet empire was military overspending amid the arms race with the U.S.

    Keeping that in mind, China has developed its defense capabilities in a long-term, planned and gradual manner. Even though the U.S. is flexing its muscles in the South China Sea, China has stuck to its strategy, showing no interest in military competition with Washington. The tension in the South China Sea contributed to the runaway prediction of a 20 percent increase in military spending by China. People saw the potential competition, but failed to grasp the Chinese strategy.

    China has reorganized its military regions from seven into five, with a goal of enhancing combat readiness, efficiency and effectiveness. But the nature of the Chinese military remains defensive. Given the ongoing territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas, as well as the Taiwan issue, the priority for the Chinese military will be defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity, a sharp contrast to that of the U.S., which stations troops in some 150 countries.

    Long-term goal? Will China act to overhaul the international order? China joined the World Trade Organization more than a decade ago. Last year saw China strengthen its standing in international institutions, such as the enhanced voting power in the IMF, the yuan becoming a reserve currency and China joining an European bank.

    As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on March 8, “China is not building a rival system…we are seeking to play a bigger role in the existing international order and system.” Indeed, China is seen as the largest beneficiary of the existing international order and there’s little incentive for it to topple the system.

    Responding to the China-U.S. relationship, the most important one affecting global peace and stability, Wang noted China has no intention of dethroning Washington as the world’s number one superpower. “The source of friction is that there are always some people in the United States who have strategic suspicions about China. They are worried that China will one day supersede the United States. I want to emphasize once again that China is not the United States, and China will not and cannot become another United States. We have no intention of displacing anybody or dominating anybody.”

    An in-depth grasp of Chinese culture, which stresses harmony and non-intervention, and China’s realistic need to protect its territorial integrity, will help people realize that the Chinese military growth is by nature defensive rather than offensive. Beijing is not deploying 60 percent of its naval and air force to regions near the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico. Correspondingly, Beijing doesn’t need to overspend itself at a time of economic slowdown, especially since it has no intention of challenging the U.S.

    (The author is a current affairs commentator with China Radio International and a visiting scholar at the University of Melbourne.)