Beijing: China on Thursday denounced a Pentagon report, which accused Beijing of leveraging reduced border tensions with India to undermine US-India ties while deepening defence ties with Pakistan as an attempt to sow discord with false narratives.
“The Pentagon’s report distorts China’s defence policy, sows discord between China and other countries, and aims at finding a pretext for the US to maintain its military supremacy,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a media briefing here when asked about the US Department of War report submitted to the American Congress.
China firmly opposes the report, Lin said.
Separately, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang denounced the Pentagon report, which also highlighted the cooperation between China and Pakistan in sectors such as defence and space, with plans to set up a military base. The US releases such reports year after year, grossly interfering in China’s internal affairs, Zhang told a separate media briefing.
The US report maliciously misinterpreted China’s national defence policy, made unfounded speculations about China’s military development, slandering and smearing the normal actions of the Chinese military, he said, declining to directly respond to a question on the report alleging China’s expanding defence and cooperation with Pakistan.
The report is full of erroneous understandings of China and geopolitical biases, exaggerating the so-called “Chinese military threat” to mislead the international community, Zhang said.
“We express our strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to this,” he said and urged the US to stop fabricating false narratives and provoking confrontation and antagonism.
In his response to the Pentagon report on India-China ties, Lin stated that Beijing views and handles its relations with New Delhi from a strategic height and a long-term perspective