China likely will continue its explosive 12 to 18 percent increase in military spending, an analyst said.

The Asian giant can well afford such outlays, with a national debt equivalent to just 25 percent of economic output, compared to 80 percent in the United States and 100 percent in Japan, according to David Finkelstein, vice president and director of China studies with CNA, a Washington think tank focusing on defense and other issues that includes the Center for Naval Analyses.

However, as to just where that money will go and on what weapons platforms it will be spent, the recent 2008 White Paper issued by China on its military activities and intentions provided little detailed information, Finkelstein and other military analysts said yesterday at a CNA panel forum at the City Club in Washington.

Therefore, the paper, while not as opaque as some earlier White Paper offerings, provided little in the way of precise specifics to help guide U.S. military leaders as to what military hardware the United States should purchase to counter the rising Chinese military.

The newly installed Obama administration and members of Congress currently are wrestling with whether the Air Force should buy more radar-evading F-22 Raptor supersonic aircraft, and whether the Navy should begin production of the DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class destroyers that also can evade enemy radar.

China has some 1,400 radar-guided missiles aimed toward the Taiwan Strait. While China insists in a law on its books that it will invade Taiwan and seize it by force if it doesn’t voluntarily agree to rule by Beijing, the United States opposes any violence in resolving the Taiwan issue.

"I don’t think that there’s anything in this White Paper that would help you" decide what weapons platforms the United States should buy to counter the rising might of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), said Michael D. Swaine, senior associate and co-director of the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Since Chinese leaders and military officials variously say the PLA military buildup is for coastal patrols, or to attack Taiwan, or to patrol sea lanes, the panel was asked why then China is procuring land-based nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles with a range of 7,000 miles, nuclear-powered Jin Class submarines wielding nuclear-tipped missiles with a range of almost 5,000 miles, long range bombers, and more, including aircraft carriers, since those platforms would be suitable for projecting power far from the Chinese mainland.

That’s because China seeks stability, Swaine said. This acquisition drive will "develop a less vulnerable force," so that procuring these platforms is "prudent defense planning."

Other panelists said the buying spree might be for deterrence, or to present a credible and capable military force to the world, including showing off weapons in parades.

However, clearly China has moved into vast new capabilities, and Finkelstein said this constitutes a "paradigm shift," where China no longer is focused merely on defending its coastline, but where China still remains worried about its enormous economic investment arrayed along its coastline.

Many of the billions of dollars worth of goods China produces for the United States and other nations come from factories on the Chinese East Coast, Finkelstein noted.

Panelists downplayed Chinese objections to planned U.S. sales of military hardware to Taiwan as typical, repeated comments.

The new Congress isn’t likely to cancel those proposed arms sales, according to Phillip C. Saunders, senior research fellow in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the

National Defense University. "I don’t think that’s going to happen," he said.