China plans 17.8 pct defence budget rise in 2007-spokesman

BEIJING, March 4 (Reuters) China plans to boost military spending by 17.8 per cent in 2007, continuing the emerging power's stretch of double-digit annual increases in money for missiles, tanks and the building blocks of military modernisation.

Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for the National People's Congress, told a news briefing today that the planned allocation for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) for 2007 was 350.92 billion yuan, or about 44.94 billion dollars an increase of 17.8 per cent from last year.

The announcement was made a day before the annual session of China's national parliament begins.

Jiang said China has always pursued ''coordinated development of the national economy and national defence.'' The defence outlay represented 7.5 per cent of this year's total planned budget, he said.

The rise comes after a 14.7 per cent increase in China's defence spending in 2006, when the official defence outlay reached 283.8 billion yuan.

China is seeking to modernise its huge but often poorly equipped military forces by building or buying new ships, missiles, fighter planes and other armaments to enable Beijing to extend its strategic reach, and also maintain pressure on Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China says must accept eventual reunification.

The budget increase is unlikely to comfort Washington, which has repeatedly criticised China's military spending as opaque.

China's military spending is still dwarfed by the United States'. The Bush administration has requested 484.1 billion dollars for the Defence Department in the next fiscal year starting from October 2007. That figure does not cover military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But international experts have estimated that China's true spending on the PLA may be up to three times more than the official number.

US Vice President Dick Cheney said on a recent visit to Asia that China's anti-satellite missile test in January and its military buildup were ''not consistent with Beijing's stated goal of a 'peaceful rise'''.

REUTERS SSC RK0953