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China Accuses US of 'Exaggerating' Military Threat
China's state news agency accused the United States Thursday of "exaggerating" the threat posed by its military, after a report said the Asian nation was expanding its maritime power.
File photo of Chinese PLA Navy sailors. China is increasingly focused on naval power and has invested in hi-tech weaponry that will extend its reach in the Pacific and beyond, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The Chinese responded by saying it's weird that the Pentagon, whose expenditures reached nearly $700 billion and accounted for over an appalling 40 percent of the world's total in 2010, routinely points its finger at them. (AFP) The US defence department said in its annual report to Congress that China was increasingly focused on naval power and had invested in hi-tech weaponry that would extend its reach in the Pacific and beyond.
Xinhua said many people in China found it "weird" that the United States, which spends far more on its military than any other country in the world, should highlight Chinese expenditure.
"The report... exaggerated the threat incurred by China's military development in 2010 to the Asia-Pacific region," Xinhua said in a commentary.
"For many in China, it is weird that the Pentagon, whose expenditures reached nearly $700 billion and accounted for over an appalling 40 percent of the world's total in 2010, routinely points its finger at China."
China's People's Liberation Army -- the largest armed force in the world -- is extremely secretive about its defence programmes, which benefit from a huge and expanding military budget boosted by the nation's runaway economic growth.
Beijing announced earlier this year that military spending would rise to 601.1 billion yuan ($91.7 billion) in 2011 and also said it was developing its first stealth fighter jet.
The weapons buildup comes as the Asian economic giant places a growing emphasis on securing strategic shipping lanes and mineral-rich areas in the South China Sea.
Beijing claims sovereign rights to almost all of the South China Sea, although several Southeast Asian countries have competing claims.
Tensions flared this year after the Philippines and Vietnam accused China of becoming increasingly aggressive.
The Pentagon report, released on Wednesday, also renewed US warnings that China was extending its military edge over Taiwan, citing better artillery that could strike targets within or even across the Taiwan Strait.
China considers Taiwan, where the mainland's defeated nationalists fled in 1949, to be a province awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, and Xinhua said the report amounted to "interfering".
"The 94-page report, as usual, interferes with the internal issue of China by making wilful comments on the situation across Taiwan Straits," it said.
Xinhua also accused the Pentagon of "overlooking the country's peaceful defence policy" in its report.
"The Pentagon report, submitted to the Congress by the Pentagon annually pursuant to a US law since 2000, has drawn
protest from China over its interfering nature, distortion of facts and baseless speculations," it said.
The dispute over Taiwan, including US arms sales to Taipei, has remained a stumbling block to Washington's attempts at promoting a security dialogue with the Chinese military.
However, Xinhua said relations between the US and Chinese militaries had improved over the past year.
It cited a visit to China last month by US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, America's top military official. Mullen's Chinese counterpart Chen Bingde visited the United States in May.
37 Comments so far
Show AllThe Amerikkkan Empire of world wide military bases and its astronomical military budget (greater than all the military budgets of the world combined) are the greatest threat to world peace.
"Oh goody!"...sez the MIC..."Another Cold War. Time to request more money for weaponry... and we can borrow it from China".
Formosa both the before the Second World War and in the provision of the Yalta agreement which London, the United States, and Moscow (the big Three) signed is a province of China which at the time Japan had taken cotrol of as part of its war effort in the Pacific. Now how could anyone say it's not a province of China? It would be more legitimate to question Hawaii being a part of the USA as Hawaiii did at least initially resist US occupation and control.
And there are more than a few Hawaiians who would like to have their stolen country back.
How many is "more than a few? I am asking genuinely. How many Hawaiians actually want independence? Percentage of the population?
I lived on the Big Island for a time, and I would say that more than a little of the 'native' Hawaiian population on that island would wish the United States to make itself scarce. Sorry, I don't have 'facts' or statistics, just what I heard.
How about the people of Formosa? WTF gives a rat's flying ass about Yalta?
Hate to say it but the Chinese are correct to say the US is in no position to criticize China's military spending.
The way things are going lately, we are in a position to drive our bus off a high cliff.
On the flip side, the US accuses it's "allies" of not spending enough on military. Paranoid sociopaths assume everyone thinks like them.
Paranoid sociopaths feel everyone thinks them. Each president gets to issue their own policy of when he'll use nukes. One of W's rules was the US can nuke any country he feels is trying to achieve parity with the US. The silence the greeted his policy was deafening.
I always love it when China calls the US out on criticizing them for something they're just as guilty of. The US' hypocrisy is simply astounding sometimes.
Hello jpheran AKA bloodmeridian/readbetween
The name changes but the message stays the same. Yeah, we know -you don't like white people.
The United States has given up any right, if it ever had any, to criticize any country about anything. The only thing we have that makes right is power. The Soviet Union used to be in that position too. Even Nazi Germany held that position for awhile. Any empire can fall. It's good to keep that in mind.
The Chinese should have issued the following, more succinct statement: "F*** Off."
Privately they probably did.
The United States policy is to make the world safe for white christians to dominate and exploit. They have had an ongoing policy of slaughtering non-whites since the beginning of their country and China is smart to build up its military strength because based on past history the Americans do represent a real threat to their peace and security.
"China Accuses US of 'Exaggerating' Military Threat"
No, no - US wouldn't do that, exaggerate a military threat. US is the voice of reason in international affairs: "We learned that Washington is so strong, it's always right and never wrong." This article only goes to show how unreasonable and militarily threatening China is: "Pentagon .. accounted for over ... 40 percent [42.8 %] of the world's total [military spending] in 2010", while according to SIPRI China accounted for an outrageous 7.3 percent. And: "The increase in 2010 is almost entirely down to the United States, which accounted for $19.6 billion of the $20.6 billion real-terms increase." - But that's because China is so militarily threatening. Surely.
"Pentagon .. accounted for over ... 40 percent [42.8 %] of the world's total [military spending] in 2010"
Look at our annual budget. The Pentagon gets 58% of the total federal budget. 14% of that is black money, unaccountable to anyone. Another 15% is "administration" (what pays the senators, congressmen, executive and judiciary their salaries and free medical care, lifetime pensions, etc.)
That leaves 27% divided into tiny slices for education, job training, world hunger, health, human services, science and energy, community development, environment, housing, agriculture and transportation.
That 27% is where the billions are to be cut by the "super congress." There has been a token reduction in the request for a budget increase for the pentagon, which got great press, but isn't even a small drop in the bucket.
In a fascist nation, the people only count as sources for cheap labor and cannon fodder for its endless wars.
Welcome to fascist America, successor to numerous fascist regimes extending back through Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and clear back to the Roman Empire. (actually even beyond that)
Eventually, fascist regimes self-destruct due to internal dry rot, but they invariably take a lot of humanity with them.
Pot meet Kettle....
Chinese military spending ...
Maybe we should have worried about this issue before we sold ourselves out to the Chinese. It's a bit like closing the barn door after the horse got out ....
I suspect that someone did.
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Clearly the ongoing nest of Middle Eastern debacles never sense as a way of getting hydrocarbons: these could have been purchased more cheaply. And of course the rest of the hoopla about defence and liberty was rot and coarse lies.
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There were, of course, immediate corporate motivations for war: largesse from the Treasury and the Feed, "credit" schemes, opium and oil deals, the creation of nations with corporate-crafted Friedman-Pinochet-style constitutions for easy monopoly.
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But it seems unlikely that this constitutes motivation for all the players: immediate business interests tend to be somewhat diverse, the interests of individual governors more so. And though it is always a mistake to overlook paranoid delusion as a motive for political action, so persistent and endemic a mindset lasting over decades suggests something else in addition.
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I am not the first to observe this, but the possibility bears repeating. The presence of hydrocarbons in Iran, Iraq, and the old central South of the Soviet Union along with the slow unravelling of the colonial heritage in China and India makes a strong natural case for a central Asian alliance, despite the extensive cultural and historical obstacles.
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It does not seem unlikely that a China, with a predominately male population, expanding deserts, and hydroelectric sources dwindling with the Himalayan snowcaps, might make moves that might become military. Taiwan is a target, but the Southeastern peninsula is far richer in resources, and a path to the Middle East seems a natural goal.
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What makes this more probable is that it need not involve an actual Chinese invasion, nor even necessarily a direct threat. It might be sufficient to make a sufficiently close treaty to discourage American occupation in return for favorable trade - not a wholly illogical option for an oil-rich state.
I recall during our war with North Vietnam that we had many large military bases in South Vietnam, Thailand, Guam, Diego Garcia, Taiwan, and the Phillipines.
We used severa aircraft carriers, battle ships, thousands of helicopters, thousands of fighter bombers, hundreds of B-52s and thousands of ground troops, marines, army, navy and air force troops against a not so well equipped guerilla force military..... We lost the long, bloody, sensless war which was primarily Robert McNamarra's swell idea.
When the final peace talks were conducted in France, one of our top Army generals said to a North Vietnamese general, "We never lost a battle with your troops".___ After a momet the Vietnam general replied, "That is true, but it is not relivent, as we have won the war."
Now China is building a super carrier and we are concerned? We have eight of them. Does china have hundreds of long range strategic bombers, or even one? __ I personally do not like to see any power build up it's military, including us.
Yeah, we get it jpheran/bloodmeridian/readbetween -you don't like white people. What a sad and pathetic creature you've become. The old shrieking racist that everyone on CD must tolerate. You should really get a life, lady.
Unlike the US, China can actually afford its military.
In round numbers:
China's population is 4 times the size of America's. (1.2 billion vs. 300 million)
US military expenditures are about 10 times China's. (China spends under $100 billion a year, and the US about $1 trillion - that's including "emergency" spending for wars, veterans' administration, various hidden outlays, and interest on the national debt.)
If China's military expenditures per capita were brought up to US levels, China would spend a whopping $4 trillion a year on its military.
If America's military expenditures per capita were brought down to China levels, the US would spend about $25 billion a year on its military.
China spends its resources making things and selling them to people in other countries. The United States spends its resources destroying things and killing people in other countries. Any wonder why the US is a world power in decline and China a world power on the rise?
And what does it say about America and the state of our democracy that our politicians can get away with describing any little increase in China's defense budget as a threat to civilization, then turn around and describe our obscene military as necessary for our security?
Yes, China's militarism is sooo much more palatable than ours. China's one child policy and Chinese preference for males has resulted in 20-30M excess males. I wonder how that works out for world peace.
It will probably at some point lead to the practice of polyandry ---- these things have a way of working out. ------ dh
But, but ... they're spending in ten-foot-tall Yuans!
It is interesting to note that in all of recorded history, China has never advanced outside it's own territory, even when it would have been easy to do so. China has an "internal" empire and has never sought to expand it. I see no reason to expect that it will do so now. The expansion is a direct and protective response to the military adventurism of the United State and NATO. Weak nations are being attacked constantly by the U.S. and NATO. China won't take a chance on military actions. They are constantly reminded of Great Britain's naval attack, the Boxer Rebellion, and of Japan's successful invasion caused by their own military weakness. When strong, China fought the U.S. and the U.N. to a standstill in Korea. China, unlike Iraq and Libya, won't conceed it's military and won't "obey" the U.S. demands for removal of its military might. Every nation that has given in to the U.S. has been destroyed.
I wonder what Vietnam would think of your ridiculous assertion that "China has never advanced outside it's own territory" Or do you consider Vietnam as Chinese territory?
While I agree that the US is the pot calling the kettle black, I do think the Tibetans may disagree with the idea that "China has never advanced outside it's own territory, even when it would have been easy to do so" (even if the Chinese do see Tibet as part of their 'internal empire')
I would say that China sees buffer states as part of it's sphere of influence, while the United States sees the entire world as it's potential territory. It's a matter of caution on one hand, and barbarism on the other. That's not to say that the Chinese leadership cannot be as arrogant as anyone else. That's been proven over and over again in the way they have manhandled Tibet. But before anyone from the United States criticizes Chinese/Tibetan relations, they should remember how we 'handled' the 'Indian problem' here in the States.