PLA Daily 2004-06-15

　　

PLA Daily 2004-06-15

On May 28, the U.S. Defense Department released the Annual Report on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China (Hereinafter refers to as Report). The report is permeated with Cold War mentality and it sedulously magnifies China's military power and national defense expenditure, exaggerates the deficiency of Taiwan's military power, distorts the "positive defense strategy" of the PLA and raises the clamor of the "China threat". 　　The Report this year is somewhat similar to that of the previous years, as it continues to disregard the facts and exaggerates China's military strength, especially Chinese army's development on missile strength, informationization war and space war capability, it even makes absurd comments on Chinese army's study of the Iraqi War. The Report wantonly exaggerates China's national defense expenditure, claiming that China's national defense expenditure in the fiscal year 2004 is between US$50 billion to US$70 billion, next only to the U.S and Russia, ranking third in the world and first in Asia. But actually, China's national defense expenditure is about US$25 billion, only 1/19 of the national defense expenditure of the United States, and is one of countries with comparably low military expenditure in the world and also one of the countries with the lowest per capita national defense expenditure. 　　While exaggerating China's military power and national defense expenditure, the Report also purposely plays up the deficiency of Taiwan's military power and tries to give people the impression of imbalance and great disparity of military power on two sides of the Taiwan Straits. But in fact, just several days after the release of the Report, Taiwan Authority declared that it would buy advanced weapons worth NT$600 billion from the United States. The U.S. Department of Defense and Taiwan Authority have echoed each other and their intentions are self-evident. 　　The Chinese government's attitude on the Taiwan Issue is very clear: We will try our best and in all sincerity to realize the peaceful reunification of our motherland. We firmly oppose Taiwan's separatist activities in any form. Presently, the separation attempts by "Taiwan independence" force are the roots leading to the tense situation of the Taiwan Straits. By long-term sticking to selling large amount of advanced weaponry to Taiwan, the U.S has aided the arrogance of "Taiwan independence" force; therefore, it has unshirkable responsibility for the tense situation of the Taiwan Straits. We advice the U.S military not to stick to the Cold War mentality and yields to the interests of few arm dealers, instead it should proceed from the overall situation of the peace and stability of the Taiwan Straits and the Sino-U.S relations, and stop selling weapons to Taiwan and do not send misleading signals to the "Taiwan independence" force. Otherwise, it will only be harmful to peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits and even the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, and eventually it is detrimental to the interests of the U.S. itself. 　　By Zhao Feng 　　(June 15, PLA Daily)