BEIJING — China said Tuesday it plans to extend its military’s global reach to safeguard its economic and maritime interests, while declaring that it does not seek confrontation with its neighbors despite what it called their ‘‘provocative actions’’ over disputed islands and ‘‘meddling’’ by the United States.
A policy document issued by the State Council, or cabinet, setting out China’s military strategy underlined the growth of the country’s defense ambitions in tandem with its dramatic economic rise.
Beijing insisted in the document that its military is dedicated to ‘‘international security cooperation’’ and peaceful development. But it also said that the navy would expand its focus from ‘‘offshore waters defense’’ to a greater emphasis on ‘‘open seas protection’’ as China aims to establish itself as a maritime power. The air force, meanwhile, would shift its focus from ‘‘territorial air defense to both defense and offense.’’
Patrick Cronin, director of the Asia Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, called the white paper ‘‘a blueprint for achieving slow motion regional hegemony.’’
‘‘It asserts a confidence backed by growing capability on land and increasingly at sea,’’ he said. ‘‘While it calls for balancing China’s territorial ‘rights’ with ‘stability,’ there should be little doubt on the part of its neighbors that China is building a maritime force to assert the former.’’
China’s officially disclosed defense budget expanded by just over 10 percent this year to $141 billion, marking two decades of nearly unbroken double-digit growth. The navy is reported to be building a second aircraft carrier and has also invested heavily in submarines and warships.
According to a Pentagon report released this month, China is also developing a range of missiles designed to extend its operational reach and ‘‘push adversary forces — including the United States — farther from potential regional conflicts.’’
The military’s main goal remains to prepare for potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait, the Pentagon said, but it added that China is also investing to prepare for ‘‘contingencies’’ in the East China Sea and South China Sea, where it is engaged in some maritime territorial disputes with its neighbors.
Chinese officials say that China’s declared defense spending, which is less than a quarter of the US defense budget, is significantly below the global average when compared with the size of the Chinese economy.
In a move welcomed by other nations, China sent a 700-strong peacekeeping force in December to South Sudan, where it has extensive oil interests, marking the first time it has sent an infantry battalion on a UN mission.
China also is negotiating with the strategic port nation of Djibouti to open a military base there to support antipiracy naval escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported this month. The United States and France already have a military presence in the tiny Horn of Africa nation.
‘‘With the growth of China’s national interests, the security of our overseas energy and resources, strategic sea lines of communication and the safety of our overseas institutions, personnel and assets have become prominent issues,’’ Senior Colonel Zhang Yuguo told a news conference Tuesday.
He added, however, a comment apparently aimed at the United States and other countries closely watching China’s military growth.
‘‘China will never seek hegemony or divide up spheres of power, nor will it engage in military alliances or expansion,’’ he said.
China’s expanding military power has rattled its neighbors and set it on a possible collision course with Washington.
This year in particular, Washington has repeatedly condemned a rapid program of land reclamation and construction on disputed islands and reefs in the South China Sea. A US surveillance plane was warned to leave the area by the Chinese navy last week, while Beijing lodged a formal diplomatic complaint.
Defense Ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Yang Yujun likened China’s construction activities on the islands to ‘‘everyday actions’’ like building houses, roads, and bridges. But he acknowledged that the facilities being built, including an airstrip, will have both military and civilian uses.