Defense report to UN shows openness

China has submitted a report on last year's defense¹ expenditure² to the United Nations to make its military spending more transparent³ and to build greater trust with other countries.

This is China's second report to the UN since it joined the world body's military budget transparency mechanism⁴, Foreign Ministry⁵ spokeswoman Jiang Yu said yesterday.

It gives an account of how the money was spent, and provides more information than last year, Jiang said.

This once again shows China is committed to enhancing mutual⁶ trust in the military field with other countries, she said.

Among the other steps taken by China to increase transparency are more military-to-military exchanges, a biennial⁷ defense white paper and joining the UN defense budget transparency mechanism last year.

The 2007 defense budget report is in accordance with a 1980 UN resolution, which recommends that member countries submit them every year.

This year's defense budget has risen 17.6 percent to $57.2 billion. But the increase, Chinese officials say, is moderate compared to the US, the world's top military spender, which last year had a defense budget of about $700 billion.

China's defense budget accounted for 1.4 percent of its GDP and 7.2 percent of its overall fiscal⁸ budget last year, compared to 4.6 percent and 16.6 percent in the US.

China has always followed a defensive⁹ strategy, officials say, and it will never pose a threat to other countries.

At this year's National People's Congress (NPC) session, General Liao Xilong, chief of the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army, said a big chunk¹⁰ of this year's defense budget will go into improving military personnel's living conditions.

This is important because troops in some remote areas and islands still live in poor conditions, he said.

"China's military is solely¹¹ to protect the country's sovereignty and territorial¹² integrity; it will never threaten any other country," Liao said.