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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
After dramatically increasing its military expenditure over the last several years, in 2010 China has raised it by only 7.5 percent, marking the first time in nearly 21 years that the rate of increase has fallen below double digits. While there are a number of factors behind this, the Chinese government has used this to announce its pacific intent, underlining that it has always tried to limit military spending and set defence spending at a reasonable level. China's foreign policy thinkers and political establishment have long sought to convince the world that Beijing's rise is meant to be a peaceful one, that China has no expansionist intentions, that it will be a different kind of great power.
1 “China plans to slow expansion of defense spending in 2010,” Washington Post, March 5, 2010.
2 Shen Dingli, “Don't shun the idea of setting up military bases overseas,” January 28, 2010, available here.
3 Edward Wong, “Chinese Military Seeks to Extend Its Naval Power,” New York Times, April 23, 2010.
4 Youssef Bodansky, “The PRC Surge for the Strait of Malacca and Spratly Confronts India and the US,” Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, Washington, DC, September 30, 1995, pp. 6-13.
5 Manu Pubby, “China's new n-submarine base sets off alarm bells,” Indian Express, May 3, 2008.
6 The term “string of pearls” was first used in a report titled “Energy Futures in Asia” that was commissioned by the US Department of Defense's Office of net Assessment from defense contractor, Booz-Allen-Hamilton. For details, see David Walgreen, “China in the Indian Ocean Region: Lessons in PRC Grand Strategy,” Comparative Strategy, Vol. 25, No. 2 (January 2006). Also, see Jae-Hyung Lee, “China's Expanding Maritime Ambitions in the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean,” Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 24, No. 3 (June 2007), pp. 553-4.
7 For a detailed explication of the security ramifications of the Chinese “string of pearls” strategy, see Gurpreet Khurana, “China's ‘String of Pearls’ in the Indian Ocean and Its Security Implications,” Strategic Analysis, Vol. 32, No. 1 (January 2008), pp. 1-22.
8 Ziad Haider, “Oil Fuels Beijing's new Power Game,” Yale Global Online, March 11, 2005, available here.
9 Saibal Dasgupta, “China mulls setting up military base in Pakistan,” Times of India, January 28, 2010.
10 Geoffrey Till, Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-First Century (London: Frank Cass, 2004), p. 102, concludes from this that the Chinese government appears “to have a very clear vision of the future importance of the sea and a sense of the strategic leadership needed to develop maritime interest.”
11 Harsh V. Pant, “India in the Asia-Pacific: Rising Ambitions with an Eye on China,” Asia-Pacific Review, Vol. 14 (1), May 2007, pp. 54-71.
12 Manu Pubby, “Indian submarine, Chinese warship test each other in pirate waters,” Indian Express, February 5, 2009.
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