US exaggerates military threat: China

BEIJING—China’s official Communist Party mouthpiece on Thursday said a Pentagon report exaggerated Chinese military capabilities to justify US sales of military hardware to Beijing’s rival Taiwan.
“The report maliciously exaggerates China’s ability to wage computer warfare and its space capabilities,” said a commentary in the People’s Daily news headlined, “An Outmoded Report.” “These reports by the US Defence Department have been used in the past as a pretext to justify continued weapons sales to Taiwan,” it said.
The editorial marked the latest salvo in a verbal tit-for-tat since the Pentagon report earlier this week expressed a range of concerns about China’s growing military might.
These included what the US called a lack of Chinese military transparency and concerns over Beijing’s development of cruise and ballistic missiles, its testing of an anti-satellite weapon last year and an apparent rise in cyber-espionage.
“China’s expanding and improving military capabilities are changing East Asian military balances. Improvements in China’s strategic capabilities have implications beyond the Asia-Pacific region,” the Pentagon report said.
China blasted the report on Tuesday, with a foreign ministry spokesman telling the United States to drop its “Cold War mentality.” His comments came the same day China announced a 17.6 percent increase in defence spending to about 57.2 billion dollars in 2008, following a similar increase last year.
However, on Wednesday US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the declared budget is just a portion of China’s actual spending and reiterated concern over Beijing’s military intentions. “Part of the issue is what we don’t know,” Gates told reporters in Washington.
The Pentagon estimates China’s military spending in 2007 was between 97 and 139 billion dollars, well in excess of Beijing’s official budgeted figure of 45 billion dollars.
Experts have said China’s build-up appears aimed at retaking democratically ruled Taiwan, which it views as a renegade province, and countering possible US intervention on Taiwan’s behalf in the event of war.—Agencies