China on Tuesday brushed off concerns about Beijing's military spending expressed by a senior Japanese lawmaker on Monday, saying that China has a right to defend itself as a sovereign nation and that it does not pose a threat to other countries.
At a regular press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang also questioned the motive behind remarks by Shoichi Nakagawa, the policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, arguing that Japan has massive defense spending despite its smaller size compared to China.
"Maintaining a certain level of national defense strength is entirely for protecting our own sovereignty and territorial integrity," Qin said.
"The strange thing is, Japan's size is about one-twenty-fifth of that of China's and the population is about one-tenth, yet it has a huge amount of military spending," Qin said.
"China's military spending is 67 percent of that of Japan's and its per capita amount is 7 percent. What is the true motive of such a country -- whose size and population is so much smaller than China's but nevertheless maintains a huge military spending -- continuously shouting about threat from China?" he said.
China's defense white paper issued at the end of last year said the country's military spending in 2006 will be 283.8 billion yuan ($36.6 billion). The figure from the year before was 247.5 billion yuan.
But the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based military think tank, estimated in a report last month that China's defense spending in 2006 was some $122 billion, far larger than the official government figure.
The think tank said the official budget omits items such as weapons purchased overseas and revenue from China's arms exports.
Nakagawa said Monday that China's military spending is rapidly increasing, and expressed strong concerns about Japan coming under Chinese influence in the future.
"If something goes wrong in Taiwan in the next 15 years, here (Japan) might also become just another Chinese province within about the next 20," Nakagawa said in a speech given in Nagoya.
"China has behaved calmly up to now in making a peaceful rise, but when the year 2010 is over, there is a possibility that it could continue in a non-peaceful way," the lawmaker, known for his hawkish stance on defense, told reporters later in the parliament building in Tokyo, referring to the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.
"If Taiwan is placed under its total influence, Japan could be next," he added.
