China criticizes Pentagon report for impeding relations
( 2002-07-16 16:31 ) (8 )

China's leading newspaper, People' s Daily, issued signed article on Tuesday criticizing the Pentagon 's annual report on the Chinese military, saying the report was impeding bilateral relations and had ulterior motives.

The report, based on the authors' conjecture but not facts, intentionally exaggerated the increase of China's military force, and the authors tried to lead people into the "China Threat Trap", said the article.

The article pointed out that China's defense budget for the year 2002 is less than 20 billion United States dollars, which is the lowest among the world's major countries and only a very small portion of that of the United States.

"For a large country like China, which has 1.2-billion population and long land borders, such a budget only meets the basic need of maintaining security," said the article.

Disregarding the facts, the Pentagon report estimated that China's defense spending was as high as 65 billion dollars, which was groundless, added the article.

According to the article, people who exaggerated China's defense spending have their own ulterior motives.

First, there were some people reluctant to give up "the Cold- War Thinking". They were upset over the improvement of Sino-US relations, and were trying to manipulate the Bush administration's China policy through the report.

Secondly, the report was also used as an excuse for the US to sell more weapons to Taiwan.

The article declared the report to be "full of loopholes and errors, which did not deserve being refuted one by one." But it stressed that China had always been a peace-loving country and pursued an independent foreign policy.

"Still being a developing country, China's per capita GDP is listed at the 127th place in the world," the article went on. " Therefore, China's key task is to create peace, an international environment favorable to economic development, and improve the people's living standards."

China had no intention of spending its limited financial resources on arms expansion or military competition. Neither would it do such things when it was capable in the future, said the article.

The article stressed that maintaining good bilateral relations is important to both China, the US and the world situation, and Sino-US relations can retain a healthy development only when the three communiques signed by the US and China are observed.