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When Huang Xu was a young soldier in an artillery unit on the Chinese coast in the late 1980s, war with Taiwan always seemed imminent.
“We were on alert level one every day, and drilling for Taiwan (contingencies) all the time,” said the driver in the booming coastal city of Xiamen just a few miles away from the self-ruled island.
Today, the dynamic across the Taiwan Strait has changed. Trade between democratic Taiwan and Beijing, which claims sovereignty over it, has blossomed and the two economies are increasingly intertwined.
But while the military drills and bombardments of past decades have passed, tensions are as real as ever and still dominate Beijing's security agenda.
The military equation has also changed. Where artillery tubes once stood along the coast of China's Fujian province, now there are launchers for guided missiles — some 800 of them.
China's defense spending has risen steadily in recent years and, when parliament convenes in March, it is expected to approve another year of double-digit growth in the military budget.
Last year, the National People's Congress announced a 14.7 percent rise in the defense budget over the previous year, to 284 billion yuan ($36.6 billion). Foreign analysts say the true amount of defense spending is 1.5 to three times that.
Preventing Taiwan from declaring independence remains a key priority for the 2.3-million-strong military, the world's biggest. Beijing regards the island as Chinese territory and has vowed to reunite it with the motherland, by force if necessary.
But as its army becomes leaner and better equipped, analysts say Beijing is looking beyond Taiwan scenarios to other areas of importance for a country with increasing interests worldwide.
“Taiwan is a part of it, but it's not everything, it's not even a big part these days,” said Li Peng, assistant director of the Taiwan Research Institute at Xiamen University.
For instance, China has a growing economic stake in the shiploads of cargo and oil sailing through the Straits of Malacca and some say a growing desire to assert itself across the region, especially with potential rivals Japan and India beefing up their military preparedness.
BEYOND THEIR BORDERS
Some analysts say much of the Chinese military is bloated and outmoded, but consistent yearly growth in the military budget coupled with a lack of transparency have raised perennial concerns, in particular from the United States.
China counters that its borders are long and it has a responsibility to defend its territorial integrity, and therefore to raise military spending and modernize its forces. It also says most of the money goes on salary and benefit upgrades.
But over the past year, China unveiled a new fighter plane, blinded a U.S. satellite using a ground-based laser, and blasted one of its own satellites out of orbit with a ballistic missile.
The anti-satellite test caused particular concern abroad because Beijing gave no advance notice to other countries which interpreted the test as a flexing of military muscle and a signal of deterrence to the United States, which relies on satellites in similar orbits for navigation.
Late confirmation of the test left observers wondering, too, whether the Foreign Ministry even knew about it in advance, which some say could indicate that the military is on a looser leash than may be prudent for China's security and that of others.
Expressing concern, Vice President Dick Cheney said on a visit to Asia last week that the anti-satellite missile test and China's speedy military buildup were “not consistent with China's stated goal of a 'peaceful rise.”'
Looking forward, military analysts believe China's forces will continue to grow stronger and more nimble and pose a growing challenge to the U.S. military and others in the region, regardless of the state of diplomatic ties.
“China is going to continue forward on a variety of military programs that enhance China's asymmetrical capabilities no matter how friendly Washington is to Beijing,” said Wendell Minnick, Asia bureau chief for Defense News based in Taipei.
China will keep acquiring “capabilities designed to enhance their military presence beyond their borders,” said Michael Swaine, an expert in the China Program of the Carnegie Endowment.
Beijing's traditional land-centered military development is shifting to give more reach to the navy and air force, a potentially troubling development to its neighbors and Western powers such as the United States.
“It's a fairly systematic, pretty comprehensive increase in their conventional capabilities that is going to make them a more significant player certainly beyond their borders,” Swaine said.
