China has embarked on a multi-billion dollar defence spending spree as it strives to define its place in a world that has changed dramatically since September 11th.
The country is trying to develop its military muscle, with particular emphasis on transforming the People's Liberation Army from an amateur into a modern, streamlined fighting machine.
What is increasingly unsettling many foreign governments is the fact that the PLA is shopping for foreign arms and the latest military technology with a vengeance in its ambitious effort to build a powerful military to complement its robust economy and underpin its strategic position in Asia.
On Friday last, delegates to China's Parliament, the National People's Congress, agreed a 17 per cent increase in the defence budget for this year, the second significant rise in a row. This will bring the publicly acknowledged defence spend for 2002 to $20 billion.
However, Western military analysts believe that because the official budget does not include arms purchases and money for research and development, Beijing's real defence spending is much higher, ranging between $40 and $55 billion.
If true, this would make China the highest defence investor in Asia, spending considerably more than the $45 billion spent annually by Japan. But it still pales in comparison to the US budget, which will be $379 billion for the next fiscal year.
There are various factors that have pushed China into its current defence spending splurge. For a start, the increase reflects Beijing's concern at America's military might in the region since September 11th, in Afghanistan, in Central Asia and the Philippines.
The defence drive also stems from Beijing's dismay over US military success abroad in the last decade. Chinese generals were said to be in awe at the superiority of US troops and arms in the Gulf War in 1991, in Yuogslavia in 1999 and more recently in Afghanistan.
The Bush administration's decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and continue work on a missile defence system has also convinced Chinese leaders of the need to overhaul the army to counter US prowess.
A Los Angeles Times report last week which said the Pentagon had contingency plans for a nuclear strike against seven countries including China, (in the case of war between Beijing and Taiwan), also angered military top brass here, and convinced them that major investment in the army was justified.
Beijing wants to become a regional power that other governments cannot afford to ignore militarily, especially over trouble spots such as Taiwan, the so called "renegade island" Beijing regards as its own. It wants to re-equip the PLA so that, if necessary, it has the strength to recover Taiwan by force and deter intervention by the United States in the event of a cross-strait conflict.
However, despite more than a decade of sizeable increases in the defence budget, military analysts claim the PLA is still struggling with its modernisation programme and has a long road to travel.
China is looking overseas to source its military firepower. In the secretive world of the international arms trade it is difficult to determine the true value of Chinese offshore orders.
But international arms trade monitors estimate that China is now the world's biggest arms importer, ordering everything from supersonic fighters and missiles, to computer aided software design.
They report that up to half of Russia's $4 billion in military sales last year went to China, in ships and combat aircraft valued at close to $3 billion, more than twice any other buyer's tally.
Recent Russian weapon and equipment sales have included 72 Su-27 fighter-ground attack aircraft; 100 S-300 surface-to-air missiles; 10 Il-76 transport aircraft; four Kilo-class submarines and two Sovremenny-class destroyers.
Apart from Russia, the other main beneficiaries of Chinese spending are Israel and South Africa. The West imposed an arms embargo after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, but makers of non-lethal military hardware and technology in the US and Europe are eager suppliers.
The independent US Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control calculates that Washington approved $15 billion in sensitive exports to China in the 10 years up to 1999, including advanced computers needed to design and test nuclear weapons and machine tools for making missile parts.
Key customers for US technology include anti-ship missiles maker, the China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp, and weapons designer, the National University of Defence Technology.
The British engine maker Rolls Royce sells defence equipment as part of its broader aerospace marine and energy business in China.
It confirmed to the Far Eastern Economic Review recently that it supplied up to 90 Spey jet engines and spares to China. These are believed to be fitted on to its JH-7 fighter bombers.
China's purchases of the Sovremenny-class destroyers were touted as another sign of Beijing's new ability to project force and challenge US influence in Asia. But attempts to purchase an early warning radar system failed in July 2000 when the United States blocked Israel from selling China an Il-76 aircraft equipped with AWACS-style radar, a system Israel calls the Phalcon.
China's military reorganisation started in earnest in 1997, when it shed half a million troops from the army and transferred them to the People's Armed Police, which deals with internal security.
It also launched an ambitious programme to enhance training, education and living standards for its troops. But change has been slow in coming.
Defence experts say that Chinese pilots are years behind in terms of skill at handling and repairing the sophisticated Su-27s. It is estimated that 60 per cent of the Su-27s cannot fly, either because they are broken or because the pilots lack the skill to fly them.
But while the military continues with its arms spending splurge, the army itself is suffering.
China's official military newspaper reported last month that the ration budget for the PLA's 2.5 million soldiers would be increased by 20 per cent this year, following a barrage of complaints from rank and file troops.
The biggest army in the world is suffering from an acute morale problem with soldiers often sloppily organised, poorly trained and badly paid. Grumblings about a shortage of food rations are just one in a long list published on a regular basis in the People's Liberation Army Daily.
Joining the PLA was once seen as a route out of the countryside for young men but the army is finding it hard to attract the talent it needs, partly due to the fact that other opportunities have opened up with economic reforms.
Western military officers in Beijing say one reason China is so reticent about participating in UN peacekeeping is that its units are incapable of operating independently.
China will not be satisfied until it has attained super-power status and until its military becomes a mean fighting force for the 21st century.
Miriam Donohoe is Asia Correspondent of The Irish Times