BEIJING - CHINA fears containment abroad and separatist groups at home, a defence policy paper said on Tuesday, justifying a drive to increase military spending and push the People's Liberation Army into the high-tech era.

China's security has been improving as its economy grows and the PLA embraces modernisation, said the defence 'white paper'. But pro-independence forces in Taiwan, Tibet and the energy-rich western region of Xinjiang still 'pose threats to China's unity and security', it said.

China to Obama: strengthen military ties BEIJING - CHINA called for stronger military ties with the United States on Tuesday, just hours before Mr Barack Obama was to take power in Washington. Ministry of Defence spokesman Colonel Hu Changming said there were currently 'difficulties' in military relations between the two nations and urged the United States to remove obstacles to an improved relationship. ... more

'On this issue, there can be no compromise and no concessions,' Defence Ministry chief spokesman Hu Changming said at a news conference to launch the document.

China has pointed to its recent deployment of navy ships to police pirate-troubled seas off Africa as a sign of benign military intentions. Analysts say the mission shows a rising but cautious power's desire to project its growing global influence without alarming neighbours.

But China's increased spending on arms has been criticised as opaque by other countries, including the United States and Japan.

Beijing says its defence budget is purely for defensive purposes and is quite open, and it notes its budget is much smaller than the Pentagon's. Experts estimate China's true defence spending could be as much as triple the stated figure.

'China is faced with the superiority of developed countries economically, scientifically and technologically, as well as militarily,' the 95-page white paper said.

'It also faces strategic manoeuvres and containment from the outside while having to face disruption and sabotage by separatist and hostile forces from the inside.'

The US Defence Department budget for fiscal 2009 is US$515 billion (S$775.6 billion), a 7.5 per cent rise on the previous year. That number does not include separate multi-billion dollar outlays for Iraq and Afghanistan and some spending on nuclear weapons.

China's defence budget for 2009 has not been released. In 2008, the government said it would spend 418 billion yuan (S$91.9 billion) on defence, up 17.6 per cent on 2007.

A PLA officer said more development was needed.

'Our military's general levels of armaments have made big strides,' Mr Fan Jianjun of the PLA armaments department told the news conference.

'But there's still quite a large gap with the levels of the world's developed countries, and we still cannot fully adjust to the needs of protecting national security and unity and better fulfilling our international duties.'

While it said relations with Taiwan had 'taken a significantly positive turn', the paper denounced US arms sales to the island as 'causing serious harm to Sino-US relations as well as peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait'.

Mr Hu said China and Taiwan had 'entered a period of peaceful development' and called for improved military ties with the United States under Mr Barack Obama. But he deflected a question on whether China had reduced the number of missiles aimed at Taiwan.

'Our country's military deployments are based on national security interests, the imperatives of our fundamental interests as a nation and our core national interests,' Mr Hu said.

China and Taiwan have faced off since 1949 when Nationalist forces fled to the island after losing the Chinese civil war to the Communists, although ties have improved considerably since Mr Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwan president last year.

Media on the island said on Monday the military was considering cutting its troop strength by as much as a third as ties improve. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence said on Tuesday the 'case is still being studied'.

China said its military modernisation would focus on upgrading technology to maintain a 'lean and effective deterrent force', a programme it saw being more or less finished by the middle of the century. -- REUTERS