US needs to rationally assess China's strategic intentions

It seems that the United States' military-industrial complex and hawkish politicians intentionally desire to spoil any diplomatic positivity between China and the US.

"China Military Power 2023", the most recently published annual US Department of Defense report, is another barb between the two countries. The timing of the release, just ahead of the recent Beijing Xiangshan Forum on defense and security issues, may serve to terrify others in the Asia-Pacific.

The report vividly reflects the US' Cold War mentality, which comprises hegemony and the unbridled rise of unilateralism, and attempts to justify its military coercion of allies and partners to contain and even push for the collapse of China. It is a collection of "China threat" theories in a bid to seek more funds from Congress and deceive regional allies.

The report cites China's current military capabilities, hypes China's past military activities and speculates about China's future military intentions, reflecting US conjecture and slurs about China's military — far from the reality.

Instead of the US' portrayal of China that relies on false propaganda and self-centered estimations, China actually has peaceful defense strategies that safeguard its national sovereignty, security and development interests, as well as regional and global peace. It is not aimed at any specific country.

The US Department of Defense estimates that China will likely double its nuclear arsenal to more than 1,000 by 2030, but fails to include specific data to prove its claim.

For the US, which has more than 5,000 nuclear warheads, to say that another nation poses a threat seems to be comical. Ironically, the US has the biggest military budget in the world.

The US' high moral stance about Chinese military expenditures is also trumped by its own request for Congress to approve an $842 billion defense budget for 2024, which would be 20 percent higher than the combined defense budgets of the next nine countries, including China, Russia, India and the United Kingdom.

The US continues to develop strategic nuclear weapons, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, sea-based strategic missiles and airborne nuclear weapons, a new generation of nuclear submarines, and strategic bombers. Furthermore, the US stores nuclear weapons in other countries, which signals real strategic threats to other nations.

It seems that hyping the so-called "China threat" is intended to manufacture an opponent to maintain absolute military superiority by justifying the US' own uncontrolled nuclear and missile expansion and to quash China's peaceful and transparent military development.

In July, the US deployed a nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine to South Korea for the first time since the 1980s. It has also tried to disturb regional peace and stability through extending to the Asia-Pacific region the reach of NATO, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between the US, Australia, India and Japan, and AUKUS, the alliance of Australia, the United Kingdom and the US.

Worse, the US keeps breaking its promise to the international community by withdrawing from legal instruments of arms control such as the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Instead, it has kept upgrading its "nuclear triad" and intends to deploy land-based intermediate-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

While the US is eager to demonstrate its obsessive Cold War mentality and military hegemony, the world demands peace and development. The US should revamp its military thinking and start viewing and analyzing China's strategic intentions and national defense development objectively and rationally.

The author is executive director of the Center for South Asia& International Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan.