China defends carrier plans, neighbors worry about buildup (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s neighbors are worried its aircraft carrier program may in time intimidate regional rivals but its military on Thursday defended the plan as vital for maritime security.

A day after China confirmed it was refitting an old Soviet vessel, and sources told Reuters it was building two of its own carriers, the official Liberation Army Daily stressed the mix of patriotic glory-seeking and future security worries behind the decision.

China’s humiliations at the hands of Western powers in the past centuries “left the Chinese people with the deep pain of having seas they could not defend, helplessly eating the bitter fruit of being beaten for being backward,” said a front-page editorial in the paper.

That trend is changing as Beijing ramps up its military spending while Washington discusses cutting its much larger defense budget. Growing Chinese military reach is triggering regional jitters that have fed into longstanding territorial disputes, and could speed up military expansion across Asia.

In the past year, China has had run-ins at sea with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. The incidents — boat crashes and charges of territorial incursions — have been minor, but the diplomatic reaction often heated.

“The issue of transparency regarding China’s defense policy and its military expansion itself are concerns not only for Japan but for the region and the international community,” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said on Thursday.

In the 2012 budget submitted to Congress this week, the Philippines wants to raise military spending to 8 billion pesos ($190 million) per year from a previous 5 billion.

“China’s new carrier demonstrates the current phase of China’s military modernization. The Philippines cannot match this modernization trend,” said Rommel Banlaoi, executive director at the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research.

“But it serves as a clarion call for the Philippines to also upgrade its military capability to patrol its waters,” he said.

The Chinese carrier program could fuel the drive for submarines in Southeast Asia, said Rory Medcalf, program director of International Security at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney.

“There is already a submarine race, or submarine capability competition, in the region. This could add to that dynamic but I do not think it will be fundamental driver of it,” he said.

South Korea also disputes territory with China, which is also the major backer of the principal threat to security on the Korean peninsula, the North.

“In the past, China could only criticize the Americans whenever a U.S. aircraft carrier entered the Yellow Sea off of the South Korean coast,” said Moon Hong-sik, research fellow at the Institute for National Security Strategy in Seoul.

“Now, they are capable of displaying their own show of force in response to an American carrier deployment in close proximity to China.”

PROTECT NATIONAL INTEREST

As well as refitting the old Soviet-era carrier bought from Ukraine in 1998, China is building two indigenous aircraft carriers as part of a broad modernization program, sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

“Putting it in the overall context of China’s expanding and modernizing military, there is some cause for concern,” said Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group in Seoul.

“When we ask what they will do, or might do, with the growing capability, there is greater concern these days about the uncertainties that lie ahead with the South China Sea.”

Others point to India, China’s great rival as an emerging Asian economic and military powerhouse.

“If the Chinese leave the west Pacific, there’s only one areas they’re interested in, the Indian Ocean. In that sense, competition with (India) is inevitable,” said Raja Menon, a former rear admiral in the Indian navy.

China’s Liberation Army Daily pointed to future risks as a rationale for the carrier program, which will take many years to create an operational carrier force.

“The struggle to win maritime interests is increasingly intense,” the editorial added. A powerful navy is “an inevitable choice for protecting China’s increasingly globalised national interests,” said the paper.

President Hu Jintao has made the navy a keystone of China’s military ramp-up, and the carriers will be among the most visible signs of the country’s rising military prowess.

“An aircraft carrier is a battle platform that can be used for offence or defense, and that fundamentally rests on a country’s defense policy and military strategy,” said the paper.

“China’s development is the development of a force for peace.” ($1 = 42.110 Philippine Pesos)

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Laurence in Seoul, Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo, Michael Perry in Sydney, C.J. Kuncheria in New Delhi, and Manuel Mogato in Manila; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Jonathan Thatcher)

— ’re ’s , . : – .