teleSUR | September 2, 2020
China’s Defense Ministry Wednesday firmly opposed an “extremely erroneous” report by the U.S. Defense Department on China’s military, saying it is fraught with a zero-sum game mindset and Cold-war mentality.
The Defense Ministry’s Information Office came in response to the U.S. report that hyped up the so-called “Chinese military threat” and misinterpreted China’s national defense policy and military strategies.
The office noted that the U.S. report had slandered China’s military modernization, defense expenditure and nuclear policy, aggravated tensions across the Taiwan Strait and instigated cross-Strait confrontations.
“China has always pursued a defensive national defence policy and everyone knows that China is a builder of world peace,” Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Wednesday, as reported by the Economic Times.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon published its annual study on the evolution of Chinese military power. In this document, the U.S. authorities hold that the Asian country has equaled or exceeded U.S. military capabilities in several areas of defense.
Besides believing that China seeks to double the number of nuclear warheads in its arsenal over the next decade, Washington suggests that Beijing has made significant advances in its technical capabilities to build ships, cruise missiles, and integrated air defense systems.
The Pentagon report was released amid tensions that President Donald Trump has been generating through military exercises in the South Sea and bans to WeChat and TikTok, which the Republican politician considers a threat to his country’s national security.