BERLIN, August 9 (Xinhuanet) -- The Pentagon's report on China's military power published last month is "misleading" and China does not pose a military threat to any other nation, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt told Xinhua in a recent interview.
"Some parts and some elements of the Pentagon Report are correct. For instance it is correct to state that the PRC (the People's Republic of China) appears focused on preventing Taiwan's independence and also to underline this statement by quoting the 'Anti-Secession Law of March 2005," Schmidt said.
"It is as well correct to state that 'against the background of the policy of peaceful reunification PRC has not renounced the use of force.' It is as well correct to state that 'China's ability to project conventional military power beyond its periphery remains limited,'" Schmidt added.
However, Schmidt stressed that the US report is misleading. "As an assessment of 'the military power of the PRC,' the report is misleading because it lacks any information (with the unimportant exception of Taiwan) about countervailing military capabilities in the region, as for instance US, North Korean (the Democratic Republic of Korea) and Japanese military forces."
In its 52-page report, the Pentagon said that China, if current trends persists, could pose a military threat to other countries in the region.
"The report thereby intentionally lets the PRC appear as a giant military force. As far as the report deals with the so-called strategic capabilities (long-range nuclear missiles) of China, the absence of a comparison with the overwhelming superiority of US strategic capabilities obviously serves the same purpose. Plus of course: also the US have not renounced the use offorce."
The Pentagon report says it does not know the full size of China's military expenditure and mentions their estimates which "put it at two or three times the officially published figures."
"The latter estimate is certainly an extravagant exaggeration,"Schmidt said.
"Many countries, including PRC and also USA, are not publishing the actual amounts which they spend for defense purposes. In most cases part of it is accounted not in their defense budget but elsewhere - if at all," he said.
"On top of that international comparisons are difficult because of manipulated or extorted exchange rates. I therefore have since decades relied on the analyses of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS)."
According to the "rather dependable source" of the book The Military Balance published by IISS in 2003, China's defense expenditure reached 56 billion US dollars and that of the US reached 405 billion dollars, Schmidt said.
Japan, France, UK did each spend a little more than 40 billion US dollars. "Thereby the Chinese military expenditure appears as the second largest in the world, but it is only a small fraction of the US military expenditure."
"On the other hand the Chinese nation is more than four times larger than the American nation (and ten times larger than Japan, twenty times larger than France or the UK).
"Accordingly, the Chinese military spending per capita of its inhabitants stood at 43 dollars, Japan reached 337 dollars, the US even reached 1,390 dollars.
"Given the fact that PRC has thousands of miles of continental boarders with a great number of neighbors whilst the US have just two immediate neighbors and Japan has none, and given the fact of enormous Amercian military power in East Asia, in the Pacific and in the Indian Ocean plus Central and West Asia, the Chinese military set-up does appear to me as rather moderate."
Speaking of China's future development, Schmidt said China will be a developing country in a few decades even with a rapid economic growth.
"China is an emerging economic world power. But whilst within a very few decades it will be the second largest economy it will still be a developing country, due to the profound poverty that had characterized PRC until Deng Xiaoping opened his country to foreign trade and started economic modernization 25 years ago," hesaid.
It may well take another 25 years until China can overcome all the remaining problems and reach first class standards in scientific research and in high technology, he added.
"All these future developments will need not only enormous effort and energy but as well will domestic stability and peace vis-a-vis the outside world remain a sine qua non," he affirmed.
"After having known all the top Chinese statesmen from Mao Zedong onwards, I am quite confident that also the present leadership is convinced of this necessity," said Schmidt, who cameto China in 1975 as the first West German chancellor to visit the country.
"I expect them to be very cautious and restrained in words and actions in relation to other nations, even in cases of rude provocation.
"In my evaluation China is therefore not a military threat to any other nation."
"But economically it will become a fierce competitor for all the industrialized countries -- due to the Chinese people's high intelligence quotient, its diligence and contendedness," he noted
