China's national defence policy is one based on defence, and the so called "China threat" is groundless. China's national defence serves only to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity and protect the country against aggression and separatism.

The quantity and scale of China's armed forces have been kept at a very low level from an international point of view, and are in sync with the size of China's territory, security needs and national strength.

In 1997, China began to implement a three-year plan to reduce the number of its military personnel by 500,000 to 2.5 million, following a mass reduction of 1 million in the 1980s.

China's national defence budget for 1999 was 104.65 billion yuan (US$12.6 billion), only 1.21 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, as compared to about 15 per cent for the United States.

A small number of people are advocating the "China threat" theory to sow discord between China and its neighbouring countries in the hope of containing China's development and creating excuses for their own arms expansion and intervention in regional affairs.

China's development will by no means threaten the security of other countries, but will instead promote peace and stability not only in the Asian Pacific region, but all over the world.

China has no soldiers stationed abroad and has no military base outside the country. China has not and will never join any military bloc.

China's national defence policy aims to cultivate long-term peace and stability in surrounding countries and the rest of the world.

China now faces the daunting tasks of developing the economy and realizing its modernization programmes. Peace and stability in the neighbouring countries, as well as a new security structure based on the five principles of peaceful co-existence, serve the fundamental interests of China and other Asian countries.

China stands firm against aggression and power politics and calls for the peaceful settlement of any disputes between nations through negotiations and consultations.

The current scale of China's armed forces is determined by the topographical conditions of the country and embodies the defensive nature of its national defence policy.

China has a vast territory of 9.6 million square kilometres, a coastline of 18,000 kilometres and a land border of 22,000 kilometres shared with 15 countries.

China is a country frequently hit by natural disasters, so the military also undertakes disaster relief tasks.

Besides, the overall strength of the People's Liberation Army also includes civil and administrative personnel. So its military personnel of 2.5 million is not a large number at all.

China has not solved the Taiwan issue yet, which relates to China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and directly weighs on the national feelings of the Chinese people.

Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and it is a common aspiration among Chinese people, including Taiwan compatriots, to realize the reunification of the motherland.

But, last July, Taiwan leader Lee Teng-hui went so far as to openly advocate that relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits should be dealt with on a "state-to-state basis." The claim has caused tense cross-Straits relations.

China has time and again declared that "peaceful reunification" and "one country, two systems" are the basic policies behind solving the Taiwan issue. We have worked hard to achieve national reunification through peaceful means, but we will never commit to not using force.

Why has China been pursuing such a defensive policy?

From the Opium War in 1840 to the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, China had been bullied and humiliated by Western powers for more than a century. Historical facts have taught Chinese people that only an adequate national defence can guarantee the country's sovereignty, security, unification and territorial integrity.

Meanwhile, China is still a developing country with a large population and non-productive forces. The fundamental tasks of the country are to concentrate on modernization and improve people's standard of living. So China must subordinate the building of its national defence and encourage economic construction. The defensive policy serves this purpose.

China sticks to a foreign policy of developing friendly relations with all countries on the basis of five principles of peaceful co-existence. China opposes the use of force, or the threat of the use of force in the settlement of conflicts and disputes between nations. History has proven that China is an important force safeguarding world peace and regional stability. China will never seek aggression and military expansion.

Finally, China's historical and cultural traditions also determine that China should pursue a defensive policy.

China is a country with a history that goes back 5,000 years, and during the course of thousands of years, stress on defence has always been China's guiding ideology for its national defence policy.

Chinese people suffered a lot in wars and foreign humiliation and cherish peace and friendly relations with other countries. China will always uphold its peaceful foreign policy and will never seek hegemony. This is the solemn commitment made by the Chinese people.

(By General Xiong Guangkai, chairman of the China Institute for International Strategic Studies. This article is published on Today's China Daily)