Rumsfeld Urges China To ‘Demystify’ Military Spending
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged China on Saturday to explain its increased military spending to the world, saying it was in its interest to demystify actions that others find potentially threatening.

Speaking at an international security conference in Singapore, Rumsfeld said China had every right to decide how to invest its resources but the rest of the world also needed to understand Beijing’s intentions. “The only issue on transparency is that China would benefit by demystifying the reasons why they are investing what they are investing in, in my view,” Rumsfeld said.

A Pentagon report last month said China was spending two to three times more on a major military buildup than the 35 billion dollars a year it has publicly acknowledged. Taking a softer tone, Rumsfeld did not put emphasis on the US view of China as a potential threat or future military rival in his speech and a question and answer session with defence and security officials and experts attending the so-called Shangri-la Dialogue.

He said he thought China’s first choice was a peaceful reunification of Taiwan with the mainland. But, he argued that as China’s stake in the global economy grows it will face pressure to explain its behavior to the outside world.

“In life you can’t have it both ways,” Rumsfeld said. “You can’t be successful economically and engage the rest of the world, and have people milling around your country and selling things and buying things and engaging in exchanges, and have them at the same time worried or wondering about some mystery that they see as to a behavior that is unsettling,” he said.

“If the rest of the world looks at China and sees a behavior pattern that is mysterious and potentially threatening, it tends to affect the willingness to invest,” he said.

Rumsfeld took advantage of the presence here of other defence ministers to hold bilateral meetings. He met with Singapore’s Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean and discussed the situation in East Timor with Australia’s Brendan Nelson. He was also scheduled to meet with Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee to review their two country’s burgeoning Defence relationship. China was represented at the meeting by a lower level foreign ministry official, Tan Qingsheng, even though Rumsfeld had urged Beijing to participate at a higher level when he visited Beijing in October.

“I tried and failed,” he told the gathering. Asked about rising anti-American sentiment around the world, Rumsfeld said he was concerned about it but said he believed that “the ultimately truth wins out”. “In Iraq, some people like the good old days that never were. Saddam Hussein was no sweetheart,” he said.

“Do I recognise that the United States is closely identified with Israel and that the bulk of that region tends to be anti-Israel and blames the plight of the Palestinians on the Israelis, and by extension on the United States? I do recognize that and it’s a subject that comes up frequently,” he said.

He suggested, however, that Al Qaeda has been “enormously successful” in manipulating a free press to spread disinformation and weaken the will of its opponents.

“The United States clearly has to be sensitive to world opinion. We also have to clearly recognize that we have a minimum of high regard for having 3,000 people killed on September 11 in our country, and we don’t intend for that to happen again,” he said.