China's military marks 80th anniversary, amid concern

The military is marking its anniversary with new uniforms to update the old baggy style that has changed little in the nearly three decades since China's economy began to take off.

An exhibition in Beijing showcases the fruits of years of double-digit increases in defense spending, transforming a military long regarded as huge but vastly outdated. But it is the halting moves toward greater transparency that are the most striking, apparently motivated both by the demands of military modernization and the need to assuage nervous neighbors.

They began with the publication of biannual reports on the military in 1998 that have slowly grown more detailed, even while repeating threats to attack Taiwan, the self-governing island that China says is its territory.

Since then, increasing numbers of foreign observers have been permitted at military exercises. Drills and port visits have been held with the American, French, Indian, and other navies, and full-scale exercises held with Russia and other Central Asian states.

For the first time ever this year, a Chinese general attended a multilateral defense forum, surprising attendees by announcing China's intention to set up an emergency hot line with the Pentagon. China's Defense Ministry is also reportedly planning to appoint a media spokesman -- a major step for a body that until recently didn't even have a published phone number.

"The Chinese military is getting more and more in line with international practice, more confident and transparent," Major General Luo Yuan was quoted as saying in the official China Daily.