Beijing Slams Pentagon's Hostile China Military Power Report

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Washington's only threats are invented. No real ones existed since WW II ended.

US political and military hawks manufacture them to unjustifiably justify spending as much or more on militarism and belligerence that the rest of world community nations combined.

No matter what Congress authorizes, it's never enough. US hawks always want more to feed the nation's empire of bases, its weapons makers, and war machine.

They get it by inventing enemies and threats that don't exist.

China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and other nations on the US target list for regime change prioritize peace, stability, and cooperative relations with other countries, confrontation with none.

Longstanding US policy is polar opposite, at war on humanity at home and abroad perpetually.

Its policymakers consider world peace and getting along cooperatively with other nations a threat to national security.

In response to the Pentagon's annual China Military Power Report, its Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Wu Qian slammed what he called a "wanton distortion" of the country's aims, adding:

"Many years of evidence shows that it is the US that is the fomenter of regional unrest, the violator of the international order and the destroyer of world peace," not China, a nation at peace regionally and elsewhere, abhorring war, threatening no one.

China's military is for defense, not offense the way the US operates.

The Pentagon falsely "promotes (a nonexistent) China threat narrative and defames Chinese military's modernization," Wu stressed.

"It makes groundless accusations about China's military spending, nuclear policies and Taiwan issues."

"Chinese military advancement was driven by defending national sovereignty, safety and development." 

"It is not against any country and would not threaten any country." 

The hostile Pentagon report is one of many examples of unacceptable US "hegemony and provocation," damaging bilateral relations.

For decades, China has been at peace in stark contrast to perpetual US wars on invented enemies post-WW II since Harry Truman's preemptive war on nonbelligerent North Korea.

Much of the Pentagon's report focuses on China's policy toward Taiwan.

Beijing considers the island its sovereign territory, a breakaway province to be eventually reunited with the mainland. 

In the early 1980s under then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, "(o)ne country, two systems" became official Beijing policy, part of its plan for eventual reunification of Taiwan with the mainland, the island state to be treated like Hong Kong and Macau, retaining their own administrative systems.

The one China policy was first mentioned in the Shanghai Communique on February 28, 1972 during Nixon's visit to China.

The (1992 Consensus) one China principle affirms US recognition of one China comprised of the mainland and Taiwan — a matter Beijing considers non-negotiable.

The Pentagon report is part of its strategy for increased funding by manufacturing nonexistent threats, notably China, Russia, and Iran — nations threatened by the US, not the other way around.

The military budgets of these nations are a small fraction of what the US spends, much of it in off-the-books black budgets.

The latest Pentagon report on China comes at a time when US policy toward the country is wrecking bilateral relations — risking a clash of civilizations or direct military confrontation.

The South China Sea and Taiwan Strait are two of the world's most dangerous hot spots, along with the Middle East.

If global war 3.0 erupts, it'll most likely be initiated by the US in one or more of these locations, what's crucial to prevent at a time when today's super-weapons can kill us all.

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