China condemns Pentagon's "Cold War thinking"
BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Tuesday condemned the annual Pentagon report to the U.S. Congress on Chinese military power, saying it was a distortion of the facts, interfered in the country's internal affairs and showed "Cold War thinking". Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang added that Beijing had made "solemn representations" to Washington about the report and also denied Beijing was engaged in cyberwarfare.
"This U.S. report advocates the China threat theory and is seriously not in accordance with the facts and interferes in China's internal affairs," Qin told a news conference.
"We demand the U.S. abandons Cold War thinking and correctly recognizes China and China's development and revises the mistaken ways of the report," he added. "We are extremely dissatisfied."
The Pentagon report, released on Monday, said China was developing weapons that could disable its enemies' space technology, such as satellites.
It added that "numerous" intrusions into computer networks around the world, including some owned by the U.S. government, in the past year seem to have originated in China.
Qin denied China was involved, saying his country was also a victim of hackers.
"We hope related countries can work together to tackle this problem. If the U.S. has an accusation to make, it should produce the evidence," he said. Earlier on Tuesday, China unveiled another double-digit rise in its defense budget, but stressed once more it adhered to a path of peaceful development and posed a no threat.
International experts estimate true military spending could be as much as triple that of the stated figure, and the United States has called for China to be more transparent.
Qin said that was just an excuse.
"I want to stress that we oppose some countries or some people using so-called 'transparency' to propagate the so-called 'China threat theory' and interfere in China's internal affairs," he said.
Despite the latest round of accusations, the United States and China have been working closer together in recent years on military issues after decades of open hostility. Last week, the two sides signed an agreement to set up a defense hotline.
Qin suggested that telephone link was no use if such remarks kept coming out of the United States.
"If there is a Cold War of the mind," he said, tapping his head, "there will be no use for a hotline."
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)
