Defense chiefs are meeting in Singapore this weekend at a time of growing American concern over China's rise as a regional military power.
The Shangri-La Dialogue comes barely a week after the Pentagon issued a report saying China is rapidly extending its military reach through purchases of advanced weaponry and refined tactics.
This weekend's conference which opens Friday evening with an address by Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is also to discuss U.S.-Asia security relations, the rise of India, maritime security cooperation, counterinsurgency and regional security concerns.
By Christopher Boden, Associated Press Writer
Defense chiefs are meeting in Singapore this weekend at a time of growing American concern over China's rise as a regional military power.
The Shangri-La Dialogue comes barely a week after the Pentagon issued a report saying China is rapidly extending its military reach through purchases of advanced weaponry and refined tactics.
This weekend's conference which opens Friday evening with an address by Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is also to discuss U.S.-Asia security relations, the rise of India, maritime security cooperation, counterinsurgency and regional security concerns.
China's rise is widely seen as a challenge to U.S. military supremacy in Asia, underscoring Beijing's longtime rivalry with Japan, conflicting claims over islands in the South China Sea, and control over Taiwan, the self-governing island that China calls part of its territory but which Washington is legally bound to help defend.
"China's military expansion is already such as to alter regional military balances," the U.S. Defense Department report said in its annual report.
Keynote speakers at the Shangri-La Dialogue include U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Indonesian Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono. China is sending only low-level officials an apparent sign of its low-key approach to a gathering it sees as dominated by the United States.
Some 23 countries are participating in the three-day meeting, the fifth since the setting up of the dialogue, named after the Singapore hotel where it is held. Saturday and Sunday are devoted to bilateral discussions and round-table meetings.
Concerns over China's military rise were accented by a 14 percent increase in Beijing's declared defense spending this year to 283.8 billion yuan (US$35.3 billion; euro28.6 billion). Outside estimates of China's true spending are up to three times that amount, based on the country's heavy purchases of submarines, missiles, fighter planes and other high-tech weapons, mainly from Russia.
Beijing also announced earlier this week that it would step up improvements in weaponry and technology used by its 2.3 million-strong People's Liberation Army the world's largest.
Despite such moves, China responded angrily to the Pentagon report, insisting its buildup is defensive and accusing Washington of Cold War thinking.
"China is developing only one way the way of peaceful development," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a news briefing last week.
A key concern is Taiwan, which split from China amid a civil war in 1949. China has hundreds of missiles pointed across the Taiwan Straits and though it says it wants to unify with the island peacefully, it pointedly excludes Taiwan from declarations about the defensive nature of its military posture.
"We are ready to maintain our sovereignty and our territorial integrity," Liu said at last week's news conference in reference to Taiwan.
At last year's gathering, Rumsfeld questioned the reasons behind China's annual double-digit increases in defense spending, saying those implied Beijing was prepared to act on its threats to attack Taiwan if it continues to refuse unification.
"I just look at the significant rollout of ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan, and I have to ask the question: If everyone agrees the question of Taiwan is going to be settled in a peaceful way, why this increase in ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan?" Rumsfeld said at last year's conference.
In the year since, the sides have taken tentative steps to lessen uncertainty on either side including a first-ever visit by Rumsfeld to China as defense secretary though critics say real trust has yet to be established.
More significantly, China has increased efforts to boost ties with Russia and other countries seen as sympathetic to its aims. Later this month, China will host a summit of heads of state from Russia and four Central Asian countries.
"The efforts on the U.S. side, at least, to prod the Chinese to be more open have indeed sped up," said Yu Maochun, a history professor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. "Specific steps are still far away from reality," he added.
Other observers said Washington needs to find a way to allow China a place in the region while avoiding conflict.
"We also need to determine how we accommodate to this vastly more capable (Chinese army), and work toward becoming partners with China in the region and the world, rather than potential adversaries,&qu
