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China under-reported defense by 20 percent: Pentagon
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) June 05, 2014


Pie's the limit for Chinese presidential lookalike
Beijing (AFP) June 05, 2014 - Business is booming for one meat-pie vendor in central China, but it is the trader's uncanny likeness to President Xi Jinping that sets him apart from the competition.

Photos posted online by the state-run China Youth Network show throngs of young people surrounding and taking photos of the man, Shao Jianhua, who runs the stall in the city of Changsha in Hunan province.

Shao, who opened his no-frills operation in 2009 after moving to Changsha from east China's Hangzhou, told the website that his busiest time is when students from nearby Hunan University are just getting out of class.

"When business is at its peak, I make 1,600 pies a day," he said.

Xi was not mentioned by name in any of the state-run media reports, but users of China's popular online social networks were quick to note the likeness, with some on Thursday joking that Shao was the president's "long-lost brother".

Others joked that the doppelganger was actually Xi in disguise.

The head of China's ruling Communist Party has sought to burnish his public image since taking office in 2012 by carrying his own umbrella, showing off his football skills and eating steamed buns at a Beijing restaurant.

"Is he going incognito, to observe the people's condition?" asked one user of Sina Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter.

Last year, a report by a Hong Kong newspaper that Xi had taken a taxi in Beijing spread like wildfire on the web. China's official Xinhua news agency quickly denied the report, and keyword searches using the words "Jinping" and "taxi" were soon blocked from social media sites.

Xi is not the only leader who has a street vendor lookalike.

In March, photos circulated of a skewered-meat vendor in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang who bore a striking resemblance to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, drawing thousands of comments online.

"If Kim Jong-Un saw these pictures, I'm sure he'd hire him as a body double," one wrote at the time of the vendor, who -- like Kim -- has a round face and sports a side-shaved haircut.

China underestimated its growing defense budget by nearly 20 percent with its spending likely nearing $145 billion last year, the Pentagon said Thursday.

In an annual report required by Congress, the Pentagon said that China's defense budget for 2013 was higher than the officially announced $119.5 billion.

"We think that if you start factoring in other considerations, other funding streams that go into the military, other investments that are not included in the defense budget, that it could be up to $145 billion," a Pentagon official said of the report.

The United States and its allies, especially Japan, have repeatedly voiced concern about the Chinese military's lack of transparency amid growing tensions between Beijing and neighboring countries over maritime disputes.

In its previous annual report on China, the Pentagon said that Beijing's military spending was anywhere between $135-215 billion.

The $145 billion estimate "reflects an improvement in our understanding of how China develops its defense budget," the official said.

"But I would say there's a lot that we still don't know about China's defense spending and that's an area where we encourage China to be more transparent," he said.

In March, China announced a new hike of 12.2 percent in its defense budget to an official 808.23 billion yuan ($132 billion) for 2014.

China dismissed foreign criticism, with the state-run China Daily saying, "World peace needs a militarily stronger China."

China's military budget -- either the official figure or Pentagon estimate -- is significantly higher than the amount spent by its neighbors.

In 2013, Russia's defense budget was $69.5 billion, Japan's was $56.9 billion, with India at $39.2 billion and South Korea at $31 billion.

But China's budget is much lower than that of the United States, by far the world's largest military power, which has a $495.5 billion defense budget in 2013 along with another $82 billion allocated for the Afghanistan war.

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