Two Faced US Foreign Policy with China

The US spends more on it's military than the whole world combined, but China increases their expenditures up 17%, but amounting to 7% of the US military budget and already, the US is worried. Perhaps DoD is aware of all of it's $2 millon dollar toilet seats?
washingtonpost.com

China announced Sunday that it will increase military spending at a sharply higher rate this year, budgeting a rise of nearly 18 percent, and a senior U.S. official immediately called for clarity on the planned expenditures.


Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte said at a news conference at the end of his maiden visit to Beijing in his new post that the Bush administration is dissatisfied with China's unwillingness to share such information. "We think it's important in our dialogue that we understand what China's plans and intentions are," he said.


Negroponte has been assigned the lead role in managing that relationship, a mission he emphasized by calling on Chinese officials so soon after his Feb. 13 swearing-in. Apparently by coincidence, the Chinese government chose the same moment to announce that its declared military expenditures for 2007 will amount to $44.94 billion, an increase of 17.8 percent.


According to Pentagon estimates, that declared total represents about a third of actual military spending if equipment purchases are taken into account. But even that would amount to only a fraction of the U.S. military budget, which is proposed to rise to about $623 billion for fiscal 2008.