Hcss report

military build-up:
development of modern 
weaponry and military capabilities (including in power projection),
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expansion of 
China’s “arsenal of warheads, the building of new nuclear-armed submarines, and 
development of next-generation, road-mobile ICBMs with multiple independently 
re-entry vehicle warheads”.
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And such examples of military build-up 
have only been 
growing
over time, at a fast pace. In 2002, China was reported “to have 350 short-
range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) deployed opposite Taiwan” and 1.000-1.200 in 2011, 
“along with hundreds of new longer range missiles targeting US and allied bases 
throughout Asia”.
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Another indicator of China’s growing military assertiveness is the 
rise of its military expenditure.
As Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe put it: 

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STRATEGIC MONITOR 2014
“China increased its military spending 30-fold” over the last decades.
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Defense 
spending has even more than doubled between 2006 and 2013.
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China 
progressively 
expanded its defense industry
, too. China had already significantly increased its 
supply of arms to Africa between 1996 and 2003,
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and had become the continent’s 
second biggest supplier of arms. And in 2012, China had become the 5
th
largest 
defense exporter.
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Economic
Rhetorical Evidence
Two pieces of evidence for economic rhetoric were identified across the literature. 
They are both 
recent
and 
negative
, concern 
resources, 
although indirectly, and 
China’s territorial sovereignty. The first one is related to the denial of resources. In 
2007, China requested “oil and gas firms to stop their exploration-oriented activities 
with Vietnamese partners in the SCC, while threatening these companies with 
unspecified consequences for their business dealings with China”.
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The other occasion 
was about resource exploration. In 2012, China announced plans to drill oil in disputed 
waters in the South China Sea.
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Factual Evidence