{"id":10108,"date":"2011-08-26T04:08:59","date_gmt":"2011-08-26T04:08:59","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-08-26T04:08:59","modified_gmt":"2011-08-26T04:08:59","slug":"China-calls-US-report-on-its-military--groundless-","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=10108","title":{"rendered":"China calls US report on its military &#8220;groundless&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>China dismissed a US report on its military expansion as &#8220;completely groundless&#8221; and said it had exaggerated the threat to Taiwan, the island Beijing calls a breakaway province.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The US defense department said in its annual report to Congress that China was increasingly focused on naval power and had invested in hi-tech weaponry that would extend its reach in the Pacific and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>The report, released on Wednesday, also <strong>renewed US warnings that China was extending its military edge over Taiwan, citing better artillery that could strike targets within or even across the Taiwan Strait.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>China considers Taiwan, where the mainland&#8217;s defeated nationalists fled in 1949, to be a province awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The defense ministry&#8217;s comments come a day after China&#8217;s state news agency Xinhua said the Pentagon report amounted to US &#8220;interference&#8221; in affairs of the Asian nation.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The dispute over Taiwan, including US arms sales to Taipei, <strong>has remained a stumbling block to Washington&#8217;s attempts at promoting a security dialogue with the Chinese military.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>However, Xinhua said relations between the US and Chinese militaries had improved over the past year.<\/p>\n<p>China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army &#8212; the largest armed force in the world &#8212; is extremely secretive about its defense programmes, which benefit from a huge and expanding military budget boosted by the nation&#8217;s runaway economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>Beijing announced earlier this year that military spending would rise to 601.1 billion yuan ($91.7 billion) <strong>in 2011 and also said it was developing its first stealth fighter jet.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The weapons buildup comes as the Asian economic giant places a growing emphasis on securing strategic shipping lanes and mineral-rich areas in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Beijing claims sovereign rights to almost all of the South China Sea, although several Southeast Asian countries have competing claims.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Source AFP<\/em><br \/>\n<!--break--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China dismissed a US report on its military expansion as &#8220;completely groundless&#8221; and said it had exaggerated the threat to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"China dismissed a US report on its military expansion as &#8220;completely groundless&#8221; and said it had exaggerated the threat to","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":132,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1\">News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}