China ‘never treated any country as an enemy’
Print Edition
China’s military forces are prepared to respond to all threats to the country’s sovereignty, a government spokeswoman said yesterday.
Fu Ying said China supports resolving disputes through negotiation and its 2.3 million-member People’s Liberation Army is for defensive purposes only. However, she warned other nations not to test China’s resolve.
“But if some countries wish to provoke or wish to damage regional peace and the regional order, then we must make a response, and an effective response at that,” Fu told a news conference on the eve of the National People’s Congress annual session which begins today.
“The point of this response is to, on the one hand, maintain China’s territory and sovereignty, and on the other hand to maintain regional order and peace,” Fu said.
Other countries should take China’s sovereignty claims seriously if they truly care about regional peace and security, she said, singling out the United States by name.
She defended the country’s defense policies, saying peace could only be preserved with strength.
China’s military spending has long been cited as a cause for concern in Western countries.
“We have heard such concerns,” Fu said.
“Indeed, certain countries have been selling the idea of China as a major threat,” she told reporters. “But we Chinese might ask, can a prosperous country such as China really achieve peace without a strong national defense?”
Fu had made similar comments previously. Last year, she was quoted as saying: “It’s not good news to the world that a country as large as China is unable to protect itself.”
Yesterday she said China had never treated any country as an enemy or a threat.
Cooperation is the main theme of China’s relations with its neighboring countries, she said, maintaining that it had always advocated peaceful solutions to territorial and maritime disputes.
“For disputes which cannot be settled in the short term, we could always set them aside, or negotiate joint development plans.” However, China will “respond effectively” to provocations by those ready to sabotage regional security.
Commenting on the United States’ pivot to Asia, Fu said although the US had repeatedly stressed it did not have a specific strategy to contain China and that it was not targeting China, “we still have to see whether its words match its deeds.”
She added: “It is my understanding that both China and the US are willing to expand cooperation, and we sincerely hope that interactions between China and the US in Asia are cooperation-oriented.”
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