Beijing: China’sdefenceministryon Wednesday denounced the US Defense Department’sannualreportonChina, saying it distorts the country’s security policy and military strategy.
Over the next decade, the People’s Republic ofChinawill rapidly modernise, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces, thePentagonsaid in itsreportto US Congress, laying outChina’s national ambitions, including itsdefencepolicy and military strategies.
ThePentagonsaidChinahas more than 500 nuclear warheads and will probably have more than 1,000 warheads by 2030.
ThereportsaidChinawould use new fast-breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities to produce plutonium for its nuclear weapons, despite publicly saying the technologies are intended for peaceful purposes.
“We express our strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to thisreport,” ChineseDefenceMinistryspokesperson Wu Qian said in a statement, adding that it “exaggerates and hypes the non-existent ‘Chinese military threat'”.
Wu said the development ofChina’s armed forces is aimed at containing the threat of war, safeguarding its own security and safeguarding world peace, and is not aimed at any specific country or target.
Chinaand the United States have recently traded barbs over global and national security concerns, military interactions in the SouthChinaSea and over Taiwan, whichChinaclaims as its own territory.
ThePentagonsaid in 2022 thatChina”amplified diplomatic, political, and military pressure against Taiwan”.
“The so-calledreportonChina’s military power released by the United States is full of all kinds of wrong content, including the statement on the Taiwan issue,” a spokesperson forChina’s Taiwan Affairs Office said at a media briefing on Wednesday.
Calling the military-to-military relationship an important part of Sino-US relations, theDefenceMinistry’s Wu said, “we maintain frank and effective communication with the United States through military diplomacy”.
But he added the difficulties and obstacles facing relations between the two militaries are created by the United States.
“The United States pretends to be confused, while doing things that harmChina’s security interests, but at the same time shouting that it wants to manage the crisis and strengthen communication,” Wu said.
The latest exchange between the two countries comes days beforeChinahosts foreigndefenceofficials at the 10th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing from Oct. 29 to 31.
The United States acceptedChina’s invitation afterChinaturned down a meeting a few months ago between the two countries’defencechiefs.
(Published 25 October 2023, 03:54 IST)