Posted by
Stephen on Monday, January 01, 2007 3:49:19 PM
AP reports that "Beijing strengthening military to contain Taiwan".
But you need not worry since according to a new white paper by China's State Council:
"China will not engage in any arms race or pose a military threat to any other country, China is determined to remain a staunch force for global peace, security and stability."
The full text of the report "China's National Defense in 2006", can be found here.
Highlights...
On Taiwan:
However, China's security still faces challenges that must not be neglected. The growing interconnections between domestic and inter-national factors and interconnected traditional and non-traditional factors have made maintaining national security a more challenging task. The struggle to oppose and contain the separatist forces for "Taiwan independence" and their activities remains a hard one. By pursuing a radical policy for "Taiwan independence," the Taiwan authorities aim at creating "de jure Taiwan independence" through "constitutional reform," thus still posing a grave threat to China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as to peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits and in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole. The United States has reiterated many times that it will adhere to the "one China" policy and honor the three joint communiques between China and the United States. But, it continues to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan, and has strengthened its military ties with Taiwan. A small number of countries have stirred up a racket about a "China threat," and intensified their preventive strategy against China and strove to hold its progress in check. Complex and sensitive historical and current issues in China's surrounding areas still affect its security environment.
On an assumed challenge to the U.S.:
China pursues a three-step development strategy in modernizing its national defense and armed forces, in accordance with the state's over-all plan to realize modernization. The first step is to lay a solid foundation by 2010, the second is to make major progress around 2020, and the third is to basically reach the strategic goal of building informationized armed forces and being capable of winning informationized wars by the mid-21st century.
UPDATE:
The LA Times reports today that the Chinese will probably not have a working aircraft carrier until 2015 or 2020.