BEIJING : China will boost its military spending by 12.6 percent this year, as the nation readies to prevent any eventual move by Taiwan to declare independence.
"According to the draft budget given to this year's congress by the State Council, it has been proposed that national defense expenditures be 247.7 billion yuan (29.9 billion dollars), up 12.6 percent from last year," Jiang Enzhu, a spokesman for the National People's Congress (NPC), said Friday.
The rise in spending comes with Washington voicing concern that China's military build-up could tilt the strategic balance with Taiwan and also threaten US forces in Asia.
But Jiang insisted the budget is "still a fairly small amount compared with other major countries".
By comparison, the US defense budget is about 400 billion dollars this year, while Japan's is about 47 billion dollars.
The expenditures will be used to upgrade military armaments and modernize national defense, he told a press conference.
It will also be used for raising the salaries and social security net of military personnel and for adjusting and transforming military systems and mechanisms.
China, meanwhile, would demobilize 200,000 soldiers this year, but Jiang did not say if this was part of a 500,000 soldier cut announced several years ago or a new initiative.
The People's Liberation Army is the world's largest standing army, with some 2.5 million members.
China's stated military budget has increased by double digits over most of the last 15 years with defense spending rising by more than 17 percent in 2001 and 2002.
It fell to a 9.6 percent clip in 2003 before rising again to 11.6 percent last year.
According to the US Central Intelligence Agency, China's publicized military budget is "less than half of China's actual defense spending".
Other military analysts say China's actual defense spending could be up to three times more than its stated figure as Beijing does not include new arms purchases and weapons research and development in the figures.
Jiang also announced that a major task of the National People's Congress, the parliament which begins its annual session on Saturday, would be to pass an "anti-seccession law" on Taiwan.
But he downplayed widespread concern that the law would lead to hostilities across the Taiwan Strait.
In a white paper on defense published in December, China said its ongoing military modernization was aimed at squashing "Taiwan independence forces" and made clear any attempt at independence would be harshly dealt with.
The document said it was the "sacred responsibility" of the Chinese armed forces to stop Taiwan independence forces from splitting the country.
But Robert Karniol, a defence expert for Jane's Defense Weekly, said the budget should not be viewed as a new provocation toward Taiwan.
"The increase in military spending does not represent a new direction for Beijing in the sense that Beijing has been prepared to act forcefully to resolve the Taiwan issue, if necessary, for about a decade, so this does not represent a hardening of their position," Karniol told AFP.
"Secondly, China has been recently introducing new legislation to institutionalize a lot of aspects of its military activities, so in this sense the anti-seccession law on Taiwan is a part of that broader trend."
China already has 600 missiles pointed at the island, from which it split in 1949 at the end of a civil war.
The rise in spending comes as the European Union considers the lifting of an arms embargo on China put in place following the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy protests in central Beijing.
The United States adamantly opposes the ban being lifted.
- AFP
In the wake of 's March 26 announcement that it intends to build its first indigenous aircraft carrier, and recent American overtures aimed at greater defense cooperation to help make India a "major power," speculation is rife as to the future geopolitical consequences for the Asian region and the world.

India's rise to greater military power may serve as a counterbalance to  in the Asian region.  China is interested in developing a free trade pact with India and has made overtures in that direction, which are under consideration in India.

Indeed, China's military might is also increasing at a rapid rate as that nation's government commits an ever-greater percentage of its budget to national defense.
Nonetheless, the two nations are seeking a free trade agreement (FTA), which some observers have declared as having the potential to be "the most significant event of this decade" for the Asian region.