Publication

Critics have called on China to increase its transparency on military issues. Chinese officials and military officers rebut these concerns by claiming their transparency has increased over time and that weaker countries should not be expected to meet Western standards of transparency. Lack of an objective method for assessing military transparency has made it difficult to assess these Chinese claims and has inhibited productive dialogues about transparency. This paper presents a methodology for assessing military transparency by looking at defense white papers. It employs standardized definitions and a four-tiered set of criteria to evaluate transparency across 19 categories.