Beijing tires of being target of Uncle Sam’s ‘Cold War’ blasts

China has rejected the idea that it has plans to challenge the US as a world military power.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. China regularly accuses the US of adopting a ‘Cold War mentality’ towards its rise as an economic power. Picture: AFP

China has rejected the idea that it has plans to challenge the US as a world military power.

An editorial in yesterday’s state-owned China Daily attacked the US for “continually harping on about China’s military strength”.

The editorial, which follows an earlier statement by the Foreign Ministry, is part of a concerted ­effort by Beijing to counter allegations by the Pentagon in a report last week that Chinese bombers were training for airstrikes against “the US and allied targets”.

“Reading between the lines, (the report) is saying that China’s long-range bombers will be capable of launching a nuclear attack against the United States,” it says.

“So what? It is one thing to have the capability to do something, it is another to have the ­intention to do it.

“It goes without saying that not only is China far from being strong enough to challenge the US, it also has no desire to do so.”

The editorial says it was only natural that China, as the world’s second largest economy, should have a military able to protect its interests and “strong enough to defend its sovereignty and territory integrity”.

“The country’s peaceful rise does not mean it should not be able to defend its interests,” it said. But it said “having a military that can fulfil those interests does not mean it is a threat to another country”.

It argues that if the criteria on the threat posed by a country was linked with the size of its military, “then it is the US, which has the world’s strongest military, that is the biggest threat to the world”.

The editorial and the comments by Foreign Ministry are the latest sign of Chinese anger at ­becoming a target of the Trump administration.

While the Pentagon report on its view of China’s military capability is an annual one, it comes as Beijing appears to have been singled out by the Trump administration as the main target of its aggressive rhetoric, with a barrage of criticism from the US President about China’s trade policies.

China regularly accuses the US of adopting a “Cold War mentality” towards its rise as an economic power playing an increasingly influential role in ­regional and world affairs.

In its statement, the Foreign Ministry urged the US to “abandoned the outdated Cold War and zero-sum mentality”, while the China Daily complained about America’s “insistence in persisting with its Cold War mentality”.

China is sending Vice-Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen to Washington this week to look for ways to help diffuse the trade war, which is seeing the US ­impose tariffs on $US50 billion ($68.5bn) of Chinese exports, with threats to impose 25 per cent ­tariffs on a further $US200bn worth of goods.

China’s concern is that the report and the trade war are part of a broader plan to contain its rising influence in the world, which may not be resolved with specific deals on trade. There is also a concern in Beijing that China is being caught up in the campaign for the US mid-term elections in November, with ­Donald Trump blaming China for America’s economic problems as a way to appeal to populist interests.

Expectations are that this week’s visit by Chinese officials to Washington will not resolve any issues but could pave the way for a possible agreement when Mr Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 meeting in November.

A former Chinese deputy minister of commerce, Wei Jianguo, was quoted in yesterday’s South China Morning Post as warning that there were no easy answers to the trade war with the US.

“The trade war is going to be a long and uphill battle,” he said. “Trump subscribes to the prevailing view that sees China’s rise and our industrial development policy, such as ‘Made in China’, as a major threat to the US and his ‘America first’ policy. That’s why curbing China’s further rise out of America’s fear and misperceptions about China will make the trade war last much longer than expected.”