Sitting awkwardly at metal tables to eat egg with tomato, beef with mushrooms, rice, steamed buns and a banana for pudding, troops of Brigade 196 were at pains to show their openness to the outside world.

They had been chosen to represent the People’s Liberation Army to foreign observers, who are rarely given any insight into the biggest army on the planet.

As part of the publicity campaign to mark the PLA’s 80th anniversary, the soldiers could reveal that they were woken at 6am in summer and that they earn 200 yuan (£13) a month as privates. But the programme for their daily training, like most other matters, was not open for discussion.

Their commanding officer, Senior Colonel Zhang Qingjiang, was at pains to dispel international anxiety that rising military spending by the world’s largest armed force could destabilise East Asia and one day even pose a threat far more widely around the world. “Just because you are getting stronger does not mean that you are going to become a bully,” he said. “I just want to make the military the best it can be so it can complete its mission.”

The West is eager to know a little more about that mission. But China’s military has long observed total secrecy, making it difficult to gauge its intentions or long-term goals. That secrecy, coupled with huge leaps in the growth of its army budget and swifter modernisation, causes jitters among its neighbours.

The budget for the 2.3 million-strong PLA balloons each year, rising 17.8 per cent to 351 billion yuan (£23.4 billion) this year — roughly the same as defence spending in Britain and Japan. That is still one tenth of US military costs. Analysts say that actual spending is much higher, since the figure in the budget does not include significant weapons purchases.

An Australian government report on national security said: “The pace and scope of its military modernisation, particularly the development of new and disruptive capabilities such as the anti-satellite missile, could create misunderstandings and instability in the region.”

China is well aware of these worries, and regularly rolls out its mantra that its aim is peace and its military is purely defensive. Gestures such as the invitation to the foreign media to watch a show of martial arts as well as small arms skills and mortar fire at Unit 196’s base are part of a tentative policy towards greater transparency. Colonel Zhang said: “I don’t know what anyone has to worry about. I think we’re very transparent. I can tell you all the numbers for this base, including how much I earn.” The 50-year-old commander of one of the few bases to be opened to foreign visitors earns 1,000 yuan a month.

The show of hand-to-hand combat put on by the infantry of Unit 196 seemed to demonstrate how far the Chinese military still lags in modernisation as it celebrates its 80th birthday tomorrow. The troops had been drilled to precise perfection, but were not equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry, as they showed off their marksmanship by firing automatic rifles and mortars at yellow and green balloons and metal targets.

Retired General Xu Guangyu, now a defence strategist, insisted that the PLA was not only too backward but that it was developing too slowly. “The Chinese Army must learn from the US Army and from all the advanced armies of the world. We need to reduce the quantity of the army but raise its quality.”

China still lacks such big-ticket items as an aircraft carrier, although it has succeeded in upgrading its equipment through purchases of billions of dollars worth of jets, ships and submarines from Russia. Last year the PLA claimed two breakthroughs for its own defence industry. It blew up one of its own defunct satellites, demonstrating its capability of blinding high-tech armies such as the United States. It also unveiled its new home-grown Jian-10 fighter jet.

The Pentagon has said that the PLA was transforming itself from a mass Army designed for protracted wars of attrition to a smaller, leaner force capable of fighting and winning short-duration, high-intensity conflicts against high-technology adversaries. China has rejected that assessment as exaggerating its strength.

General Xu quoted an old Chinese proverb: “This fear among Westerners is like the people of Qi worrying the sky will fall on their heads.” He said that a backward PLA that was unable to join the worldwide fight against terrorism would be of no benefit to the rest of the world and would be unable to back up the United States in peace-keeping duties.

“We have to walk on two legs — one to co-operate with the advanced armies of the world and the other to do our own research. Westerners won’t sell advanced technology to us. But if there’s the chance, we will not rule out co-operating with them.”

Standing force

— China’s combined military forces are almost 2.3 million personnel with a further 800,000 reserves. Paramilitary armed police, border guards and internal security contribute another 1.5 million

— The People’s Liberation Army numbers 1.6 million active troops, divided equally between conscripts and volunteers. They are split into 18 self-contained groups of infantry, artillery and air defence personnel, and are deployed across China’s seven military regions

— Strategic Missile Forces, the nuclear tip of China’s military pyramid, consist of 100,000 personnel and 800 missiles – 46 of these are intercontinental models capable of deploying nuclear warheads at up to 8,000 kilometres (4,500 miles) range

— China’s seas are defended by three fleets with a cumulative complement of 255,000 men, 76 surface vessels and 58 submarines. It has only one nuclear Xia submarine with a ballistic missile capability

— 210,000 serve in China’s air force, which can field more than 2,500 combat aircraft

— Pilots fly mostly retooled Cold War era craft such as the J-7 Fishbed, based on the Russian MiG-21F, or domestic designs such as the J-8 Finback. China purchased SU-27 fighter bombers from Russia after abandoning domestic attempts to develop an equivalent capable of midair refuelling and maritime combat

Sources: International Institute for Strategic Studies; Federation of American Scientists; www.globalsecurity.org

Times Recommends

• Thousands of Tamils dying in 'welfare camp'
• Jackson 'rebuilt his nose before he died'
• Renewed Iran protests crushed by militia