China blames US for Asia-Pacific tensions

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Rockes are fired from multi-rocket launchers during Han Kuang military exercises in Penghu, Taiwan, on Wednesday.

REUTERS

BEIJING: China’s defence ministry made a thinly veiled attack on the United States yesterday for increasing tensions in the Asia-Pacific by ramping up its military presence and alliances in the region, days after the top US diplomat visited Beijing.

China is uneasy with what the United States has called the

“rebalancing” of forces as Washington winds down the war in Afghanistan and renews its attention further east. China says the policy has emboldened Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in longstanding territorial disputes with Beijing.

China faces “multiple and complicated security threats” despite its growing influence, the Ministry of Defence said in its annual white paper, adding that the US strategy meant “profound changes” for Asia.

“There are some countries which are strengthening their Asia Pacific military alliances, expanding their military presence in the region and frequently make the situation there tenser,” the ministry said in the 40-page document, in a clear reference to the United States.

Such moves “do not accord with the developments of the times and are not conducive towards maintaining regional peace and stability”, ministry spokesman Yang Yujun told reporters.

The official People’s Liberation Army Daily went further, saying in a commentary on Monday that China needed to beef up its defences to deal with a hostile West bent on undermining it.

On Monday, US Secretary of State John Kerry defended the re-orientation of US foreign policy towards Asia as he ended a trip to the region dominated by concerns about North Korea’s nuclear programme. While China has been angered by North Korea’s behaviour, including its third nuclear test in February, it has also made clear it considers US displays of force in response to Pyongyang’s behaviour to be a worrisome development.

China’s own military moves have worried others in the region, too.

China unveiled another double-digit rise in military expenditure last month, to 740.6 billion yuan ($119 billion) for 2013, and is involved in protracted and often ugly disputes over a series of islands in the East and South China Seas.

Taiwan holds drill

TAIPEI: Taiwan held its first large-scale live-fire military exercise in five years on Wednesday, as President Ma Ying-jeou called on soldiers to maintain their “sense of crisis” as China builds up its military. Ma oversaw the drill, in which soldiers aided by frigates and F-16 jet fighters repelled a simulated Chinese invasion on the offshore island of Penghu. The president told the troops that Taiwan must reinforce its defences to build a credible deterrent in the face of cascading defence expenditures from Beijing. Relations across the Taiwan Strait are the best since Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949.