By Melody Chen
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's questioning of China's military buildup does not indicate major changes in the US' China policy, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday.
Lin Cheng-yi, director of the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University, attended the three-day Asian Security Conference hosted by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in Singapore, in which Rumsfeld warned that China is spending considerably more on a major military buildup than is officially acknowledged.
In his speech at the conference, which took place from last Friday to Sunday, Rumsfeld noted that China appears to be expanding its missile forces so they can reach targets in many areas of the world, not just the Pacific region, and is also expanding its missile capabilities within the region.
"Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment? Why these continuing large and expanding arms purchases? Why these continuing robust deployments?" Rumsfeld said in his speech.
Rumsfeld also criticized China's political development.
"Though China's economic growth has kept pace with its military spending, it is to be noted that a growth in political freedom has not yet followed suit," he said.
While some observers in Taiwan argued that Rumsfeld's blunt remarks on China's military expansion might indicate the US is ready to shift its focus from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific region, Lin said that he did not think Rumsfeld's comments had strayed from Washington's policy on China.
China's military rise has been a hot issue at international security conferences in recent years, Lin said.
Whether Rumsfeld's remarks reflected the attitude of other US government agencies remains to be seen, an editorial in the Chinese-language China Times said.
"The Pentagon's hawkish views are not always accepted by the State Department or the National Security Council," the article said, which described Rumsfeld's stance toward China at the conference as "hard and even provocative."
No parties cared more about Rumsfeld's statement on China than Japan and Taiwan, the article said.
Japan, which in February issued a joint declaration with the US identifying the Taiwan Strait as a common security concern, faced a strong reaction from Beijing as a result.
"Rumsfeld's comments re-affirmed to Tokyo that the US has been watching China vigilantly," the editorial said.
Defense ministers from most nations in the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Pakistan, joined the conference.
China's delegation to the conference, led by a foreign ministry official, was low-ranking in comparison with other countries' representatives.
The ranking of delegation officials showed Beijing's attitude toward the conference, Lin said.
Apart from Lin, three other Taiwanese academics, Philip Yang, professor of political science at National Taiwan University, Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, and Liu Fu-kuo, former chairman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Research and Planning Board, also attended the conference.
Due to pressure from China, the four experts did not join the conference as Taiwanese representatives. Instead, they participated in the capacity of individual academics.
