CHINA: China has urged the US to play a constructive role in the peaceful reunification between mainland China and Taiwan, while quietly maintaining that its military build-up was defensive in nature.
Beijing has previously maintained that the issue of Taiwan was an internal Chinese affair that would brook no interference from outside forces.
"China is a country that loves peace, its national defence policy is defensive in nature. China will never engage in an arms race and its national defence expenditures rank among the lowest of the major nations," foreign ministry spokesman Mr Kong Quan said in a statement.
Mr Kong was commenting on a US Pentagon report released on Friday that said China's military modernisation was centred around the goal of forcibly retaking Taiwan and minimising US capacity to intervene.
China was moving "toward the goal of surprise, deception and shock effect in the opening phase of a campaign", according to the report, and said it was exploring coercive strategies designed to bring Taiwan to heel quickly.
"Beijing's military training exercises increasingly focus on the United States as an adversary," the Pentagon report added.
While down-playing US concerns of China's growing military might, Mr Kong refused to address recent multi-billion dollar weapons acquisitions from Russia and the deployment of some 350 short-range ballistic missiles targeted at Taiwan.
China's policy on Taiwan was "clear and consistent", he said. China would continue to seek "peaceful reunification under the one country, two systems" formula used to regain sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macao, as well as an eight-point reunification proposal put forward by President Jiang Zemin in 1995. - (AFP)