Pentagon's annual report on Chinese military power, which asserts China's normal national defense building could pose a threat to the region and even the US, has no ground to stand on at all, but reflects the cold-war mentality and power politics logic on the part of some forces in the US.  

Since 2000, the US Defense Ministry has submitted the so-called annual China Military Report to the Congress.

The publication of the 2005 report, originally scheduled to be released in April or May, has been postponed time and again, and the White House has more than once ordered it to be revised and has arranged to agree on its final version. A quick glance through the Pentagon reports over the past five years reveals that the China threat theory is a motif in the documents, including the 2005 report.

Prejudices, hackneyed expression and the same old tune but always exaggeration designed to create a great sensation -- all these reveal the same old trick with which the Pentagon has drafted its reports.

For instance, the 45-page report claims that China's actual military expenditure is two to three times the publicly available figure, making China the world's third largest defense spender and the largest in Asia.

The report also asserts that the defense sector in China could receive up to US$90 billion in 2005.

The pentagon's assessment groundlessly criticized China's military spending, saying: "China does not now face a direct threat from another nation. Yet it continues to invest heavily in its military, particularly in programs designed to improve power projection."

But people find it hard to understand that the US, by far the largest military spender in the world, while constantly making slanderous remarks about China, itself has been steadily increasing its military expenditure over the years.

According to an annual report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in June, the US military spending rose to US$455 billion in 2004, alone outspending the entire developing world in military goods and accounting for 47 percent of the worldwide figure.

Another report presented to the NATO defense ministers in Brussels last month also revealed the US military spending was at US$462.099 billion in 2004, remaining the top military spender among NATO countries with 3.9 percent of GDP.

However, China's national defense spending, which amounted only to 211.7 billion yuan (approximately US$25.5 billion) in 2004, remained at a very low level. The per capita defense expenditure figure of the US was even 77 times that of China.

What the US has done is reminiscent of a Chinese proverb: "While the magistrates are free to set fire to houses, the common people are even forbidden to light their lamps."

Deliberately exaggerating the military imbalance across the Taiwan Straits in favor of the Chinese mainland has always been the Pentagon's major job in drafting the reports.

"China has deployed some 650-730 mobile CSS-6 and CSS-7 short-range ballistic missiles to garrisons opposite Taiwan. Deployment of these systems is increasing at a rate of about 100 missiles per year," said the 2005 report, adding China's newer versions of these missiles feature improved range and accuracy.

However, the truth is that the biggest real threat to Taiwan's peace and stability comes from the separatist forces seeking "Taiwan independence" and their separatist activities.

It is the fact that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) refuses to accept the one-China principle and acknowledge the "1992 consensus," and pursues "Taiwan independence" that has worsened the situation across the Taiwan Straits.

Sparing no effort to make a big issue of the military issue of the Taiwan Straits serves two purposes at once for Washington: helping American arms dealers expand the market and make more money and creating artificial obstacles to China's reunification undertaking.

Since the US announced that it was selling more than US$18 billion worth of advanced weapons to Taiwan, Washington has for the past years pressured Taiwan to pay a large amount of so-called "protection fees."

According to statistics, from 1979 to the end of the last century, the US sold Taiwan armaments exceeding US$38 billion.

The US government's action is a gross violation of the August 17 communiqué -- the Sino-US Joint Communiqué on US Arms Sales to Taiwan, which the Chinese government and the Reagan administration signed on August 17, 1982. In the communiqué, the US government promises to gradually reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan.

Judging by the Pentagon report, it is very clear that there are always some people in the US who hate to see a smooth and healthy development of Sino-American relations.

Just in the Pentagon, there are people who view China as a "strategic competitor" of the US, and they are even convinced that the US needs to find a "new enemy" since the anti-terror war has "yielded results", the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were over and "democracy" has "taken root" in these two countries.

Since the first half of this year, the "China threat" theory has become a hot topic in the US, prompting people to heighten their vigilance over the real intentions of some people in the Pentagon.

In recent years, remarkable progress has been made in the development Sino-US relations, marked by frequent exchanges of high-level visits, enhanced strategic dialogues between the top leaders of the two countries, fruitful cooperation on the war against terrorism and other major issues concerning international security and increased mutually beneficial economic cooperation.

US President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that Sino-US relations are good and "very important and very active."

US Undersecretary of State Christopher Hill, in charge of East Asia affairs, has said that Sino-US relations are not a zero-sum game.

In other words, handling Sino-US relations in the 21st century requires a renouncement of the Cold-War thinking.

And for the US, it needs a new way of thinking in order to ensure a healthy development of Sino-American relations.

(Xinhua News Agency July 22, 2005)