China's Foreign Ministry called in a senior US diplomat in Beijing on Wednesday to denounce a Pentagon report on China's military strength. The US report, released Tuesday, was "groundless" and based on "reckless accusations," the vice foreign minister, Yang Jiechi (
"This report ignores the facts and tries its utmost to spread the notion of a China threat," the state-run New China News Agency quoted Yang as saying. "It's a crude meddling in Chinese internal affairs, and it tries to sow discord between China and other countries."
Sedney was representing the ambassador, Clark Randt, who was away from Beijing on official business, a spokeswoman at the US Embassy said.
The annual Department of Defense report on China's military muscle said the nation's real military spending may be two to three times higher than the officially reported figure, which China said was US$26 billion last year.
The report "clearly points up the reason that the president and the United States government have been urging the EU to not lift the arms embargo on the People's Republic of China," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.
The Pentagon report also said that China's growing military reach might threaten the regional military balance and that China's military modernization was "focused on preventing Taiwan['s] independence or trying to compel Taiwan to negotiate a settlement on Beijing's terms."
China does not yet have the ability to occupy Taiwan, the report said.
The US' military budget is 17.8 times the size of China's, said Yang, who previously served as China's ambassador in Washington. He contended that the report exaggerated China's military strength "in order to find an excuse to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan."
But he added that China has the right to "renew some armaments" in order to protect itself.
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