Hypocritical Attacks on China’s Defense Budget
Re Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s warning about the growing Chinese military budget, June 4: I felt that it could be used to define our own explanation for our own military actions. Rumsfeld’s comment that “since no nation threatens China, one must wonder why this growing investment.”
The hypocrisy inherent in this statement can be mirrored in our own use of Iraq as an excuse to exert our own military might. China has as much to fear from Taiwan as we had to fear from Iraq.
The bottom line is that powerful nations do as they wish for their own gains and use any convenient excuse to justify their decisions. China apparently has a need to flex its muscles and establish itself as a world power, and we have a need to control our source of oil. One hopes that China’s increasing strength and its concomitant requirement for more oil don’t clash with our own needs. It’s not a pleasant thought.
Russell Blinick
Chatsworth
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It is interesting to note that The Times’ comparative chart on 2003 defense expenditures shows U.S. expenditures at $405 billion versus China at $56 billion. So we spend seven times what China spends, and China is a threat? No wonder the world thinks we are nuts.
Robert Chickering
Laguna Beach
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