"China shall never fire the first shot", said Zhang Qinsheng, deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army (PLA)in Singapore
SINGAPORE: China's military build-up is purely defensive, the deputy chief of the world's biggest standing army said on Saturday, amid US concerns over Beijing's intentions.
"Strategically, we adhere to self-defence and would win only by striking after the enemy has struck," Lieutenant General Zhang Qinsheng, deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), told an international defence forum in Singapore.
"China shall never fire the first shot. Such an approach is consistent with the ancient Chinese thought to use caution before getting into a war, use force only for a just cause, put people first and cherish life."
Zhang was speaking to an audience that included US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and top US military officials. The general is the most senior Chinese official ever to attend the annual Shangri-La Dialogue gathering of analysts, defence and national security officials.
Zhang said China will secure the country with its own capabilities and will not enter into defence alliances with other nations. He also said China's build-up was designed to "achieve limited military power" and that Beijing was committed to "developing a smaller but highly capable military force in a unique Chinese way."
The United States has expressed concern over the Chinese military build-up, especially over Beijing's intentions. But Gates expressed optimism about relations between the two nations. The US defence chief downplayed past US rhetoric on China's military might, alluding only in passing to a recent Pentagon report on Beijing's drive to reshape its armed forces. "We are concerned about the opaqueness of Beijing's military spending and modernisation programmes -- issues described in the annual report on the Chinese armed forces recently released by the US government," he said. "But as General Pete Pace, our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out, there is some difference between 'capacity' and 'intent.' And I believe there is reason to be optimistic about the US-China relationship."
The conference, organised by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, an independent think tank, is taking place at a hotel surrounded by concrete barricades and guarded by special Nepalese Gurkha police armed with shotguns and submachine guns.
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