Alwaght- Beijing rejected as “pure guesswork” ’the US accusation that China’s military was likely training for strikes against the United States and its allies.
Pentagon in the annual Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2018 report to Congress, published Thursday, also said China’s air force "has been re-assigned a nuclear mission."
“Over the last three years, the PLA (China’s People’s Liberation Army) has rapidly expanded its overwater bomber operating areas, gaining experience in critical maritime regions and likely training for strikes against U.S. and allied targets,” the report said.
China’s Defense Ministry responded in a statement late on Friday that the Pentagon report misrepresented China’s strategic intentions and exaggerated the “so-called China military threat.”
“China’s military expresses resolute opposition to this and has lodged stern representations with the US side,” it said.
China is on the path of peaceful development and pursues a defensive national strategy, and has always been a contributor to world peace and protector of the global order, the ministry said.
“The Chinese military’s strengthening of modernization is to protect the country’s sovereignty, security and development interests, as well as global peace, stability and prosperity,” it said.
“The Chinese military’s reform, weapons development and defensive capabilities in the internet space are just and reasonable. The criticism in the U.S. report is pure guesswork.”
The Pentagon report said, "The deployment and integration of nuclear capable bombers would, for the first time, provide China with a nuclear 'triad' of delivery systems dispersed across land, sea, and air."
The report said China is “willing to employ coercive measures – both military and non-military – to advance its interests and mitigate opposition from other countries.”
China’s Defense Ministry said the “peaceful construction work” in the South China Sea was its right as a sovereign country, and it criticized the United States for its freedom of navigation operations there.
It said the report by the United States harms mutual trust between the two countries, the ministry said.
“We demand the US side abandons Cold War thinking, objectively and rationally views China’s defense and military construction, stops issuing the relevant reports, and takes actual steps to promote and protect the stable development of military-to-military relations,” it said.
China’s Foreign Ministry also protested the annual report, saying "The aforementioned report does not rely on real facts and makes absurd comments on China’s military construction… China strongly protests it" .
