China to give military spending data to UN

Beijing says it will report on its level of military spending to the United Nations and resume providing data on its trade in conventional weapons to a register kept by the international organisation.The announcement follows criticism over many years about what western nations say has been a lack of transparency in military spending by China in the midst of a substantial build-up and modernisation of its armed forces.China’s official military expenditure has been increasing at 15-20 per cent annually this century, reaching about $45bn (€33bn, £22.3bn) in 2007, but the Pentagon estimates real spending is about two to three times higher.Jiang Yu, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, in a statement on the ministry’s website, said Beijing’s decision to report its spending to the UN for the last fiscal year was “a significant step on the part of China in further enhancing its military transparency”.“This fully demonstrates that China is committed to improving mutual trust with other countries in the military field,” said Ms Jiang.She said China had stopped reporting details to the register on conventional arms after a “certain country”, which she did not name, had begun providing information to the UN of its arms sales to Taiwan in 1996.“As the country concerned has stopped [this] behaviour, the Chinese government has decided to resume providing data annually on imports and exports of conventional arms in the seven categories to the register from this year,” she said. “China has all along taken a prudent and responsible attitude in its arms exports and implemented strict controls according to its international obligations and domestic laws and regulations.”In spite of tensions with the US, in particular over Taiwan, Beijing and Washington have been warily but gradually rebuilding bilateral defence ties in recent years. Last month, Mike Mullen, US chief of naval operations, praised his counterparts in China after a visit to the country for reciprocating the access that he had offered them when they had been in the US.Alongside this slight warming of relations, China has allowed its armed forces a higher-profile role in UN peacekeeping in recent years, although its initiatives in this field seem more diplomatic than military.The UN announced last week that Major General Zhao Jingmin had been appointed force commander for the organisation’s peacekeeping mission in the western Sahara, a first for a Chinese national.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b1c08ec6-5979-11dc-aef5-0000779fd2ac.html

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