MANILA -- Despite doubling its military budget to $106.4 billion this year, China as "no intention or ability to pose a threat to other countries," China's new Ambassador to the Philippines Ma Keqing said in a roundtable discussion with journalists Thursday.
China's military buildup is only meant to match its economic growth, she told reporters. She said China's military has long been neglected and the jump in its budget now is only to compensate for the previous years' inattention.
"A major part of [China's] growth has been used for logistics, for improvement of officers' well-being to increase wages and so on. Only for the last few years, we used the increase in budget to purchase some hardware for the military," the ambassador said.
Ma also insisted that Chinese defense policy is "fully defensive in nature."
"We have no intention or ability to pose threat to other countries. Our military budget is only 1.3 percent of the total budget so that is much lower than that of the US, UK, Russia, and even lower than India and Brazil," she said.
"So such a military budget I believe that Chinese army will not pose any threat to other countries. What we want to do is to protect China's interest, protect the border and sovereignty of China. That's all. We have no ambition to invade, to interfere into other's affairs by military power," she said.
Joint cooperation in Spratlys
This increase in China's military budget comes as tension rose among the claimants to the resource-rich disputed Spratlys. Claimants to the islands include China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
China's military buildup is best exemplified by its purchase of an aircraft carrier.
Ambassador Ma said a starting point to resolve the dispute is to set aside issues of sovereignty and territorial integrity, as no country will compromise these, and instead "talk to each other, to negotiate with each other peacefully and with goodwill sit down to talk and to find [the answer to the question] 'is there any convergence on which we can find a way out?'"
"Our thinking is that pending final resolution of this issue, we should shelve the differences and put aside the differences and have a joint cooperation on the resources there," she said.
This solution will address the issue of economic development, which is a priority of China, the Philippines, and other claimant countries, she said.
"So why not use the natural resources there? But since it's in the disputed islands, no one can take actions unilaterally..Joint cooperation is the proper way to do that starting point: to shelve differences and disputes to have joint cooperation," she said.
The increase in China's military budget, second to but only about a fifth of the United States', comes as US President Barack Obama announced renewed and increased US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region following its pullout from Afghanistan and Iraq.
"I think China responded very calmly [to the announcement]. The Pacific is wide enough to accommodate US and China," the Chinese ambassador said.
She said China hopes to have more cooperation activities with the United States.
"We hope the US will take a constructive and positive role [to make] this region more peaceful and stable, and respect Chinese concern in this region. We believe and hope that there is possibility for China and US to have cooperation in this region rather than confrontation," she said.
The ambassador said the Cold War's zero-sum game theory is no longer acceptable.
"We are living in new world. We are living in like a global village. We are so interdependent...We should take an inclusive approach rather than exclusive," she said.
