"In recent years, at the pace of China's economic development, Chinese defence spending has indeed increased a little," said foriegn ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.

"But the bulk of the increase is for the improvement of the living conditions of the officers and soldiers. China has not the intention nor the capability to drastically increase its military buildup."

During a annual international security conference in Singapore on Saturday, Rumsfeld said China appeared to be expanding its missile forces, "allowing them to reach targets in many areas of the world".

"China also is improving its ability to project power, and is developing advanced systems of military technology," he said.

"Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: why this growing investment? Why these continuing large weapons purchases?"

He said a Pentagon study due to be released later this month concludes that China's defense budget is now the largest in Asia and third largest in the world.

Liu said this was incorrect.

"In fact, compared with major countries in the world, China's military spending has always been on a low level," he said.

"Last year, China's defence expenditure was 211.701 billion yuanbillion US) and US military spending was 475.9 billion US dollars. That is to say US military spending was 17.8 times that of China."

In contrast, Japan's military budget was about 47 billion dollars.

"Therefore, claims that China's military spending has become Asia's number one are totally groundless," said Liu.

"We hope that the US side will respect such facts and do more to serve a healthy development of China-US relations, to facilitate mutual trust between Asia-Pacific countries ...

"The words and the notions of a China threat are detrimental to regional paece and stability as well as that in the world."

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