CHINA MUST STOP BEING SO SECRETIVE ABOUT ITS MILITARY RISE

China has long talked about its “peaceful rise” but at the moment it appears to many to be devoting a disconcerting amount of time and energy developing weapons of an offensive nature.

There's the game-changing DF-21D missile that can allegedly sink US carriers 1,000 miles off the coast of China; the J20 stealth fighter and a soon-to-be-launched second-hand aircraft carrier, the Shi Lang, which is named after a Qing-Ming general who conquered Taiwan. Reports suggest China wants up to five carrier groups by 2020.

From the Chief of the US Defence Staff down, there is some legitimate head-scratching about how to square the development of these weapons of power-projection with China's oft-stated aims of peacefully minding its own business.

As a Western diplomat and military expert put it recently, “the big question is why would China want a stealth fighter? The normal intent of stealth aircraft is to be able to operate in other people's airspace, which doesn't really fit with a military supposedly fixed on internal issues?”

It is a fair question, and it would be in China's interests to give more answers if it wants to reassure the rest of the world of its good intentions.

As a rising power, China is entitled to have a military commensurate with its new status and, given the rapidly-growing breath of its global interests, it needs those capabilities to protect its citizens wherever they be – as was shown earlier this year in its evacuation of Chinese from Libya.

Much of the fear is rooted in China's inability or unwillingness to articulate its case, even though recently it is showing signs of wanting to try.

Last month the People's Liberation Army carried out its inaugural monthly press conference, to be held on the last Wednesday of every month, apparently embracing a new spirit of openness, but as usual gave away nothing.

One reporter (no-one at the PLA “press department” ever answers the phone, so I can't say if foreign press are invited or not) asked about the upcoming launch of the Shi Lang carrier, but was told there was “no further information at this time”.

That's a typical response, but given that you can see the Shi Lang from the bedroom department of the Dalian branch of IKEA – a favourite spot for photographers I'm told – is there really any need to be quite so pointlessly secretive about it?

The point is that actually there is lots of information that the PLA could give out that would scotch a lot of the more hysterical “Cold War” attitudes to China's military that (justifiably, on occasion) gets up the noses of China's political leadership.

It takes time to build up trust, and China's own military leadership can't be expected to slip the shackles of its own “Cold War-thinking” overnight, but there is much low-hanging fruit out there that the PLA could share without fear of giving away state secrets.

As I report, this has been a year of important and positive firsts for the PLA, deploying successfully to rescue nationals in Libya, helping out in Pakistan's floods and keeping UN food ships out of the clutches of Somali pirates.

We need to hear more about it.
Robinson Asare, UK