China today said it faced an increasingly "volatile" Asian region where the United States has expanded its strategic footprint, maintaining that better military ties between Beijing and Washington rested on respect for each other's interests.
China's People's Liberation Army spelled out its concerns about US intentions in a policy paper setting out broad priorities for Beijing's growing military forces.
The "white paper" said that while China wants to avoid military confrontation and focus on growing its economy, it sees potential security challenges across the region, many of them bound up with Washington's web of alliances and military forces across Asia, including on the tense Korean peninsula.
"Profound changes are taking shape in the Asia-Pacific strategic landscape. Relevant major powers are increasing their strategic investment," said China's defence white paper for 2010 which, despite its date, was released today.
"The United States is reinforcing its regional military alliances and increasing its involvement in regional security affairs," it said. "Suspicion about China, interference and countering moves against China from the outside are on the increase."
US weapons sales continue to Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as an illegitimate breakaway province, hampering the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, the paper added.
It also singled out the Korean peninsula and Afghanistan as sources of worry.
"Asia-Pacific security is becoming more intricate and volatile," the paper said. "International military competition remains fierce."
Last year, Beijing and Washington wrangled over North Korea, a long-time ally of China, which ignited regional alarm by torpedoing a South Korean navy ship, killing 46 sailors, and later shelling a South Korean island, killing four people.
North Korea denied downing the ship, and China refused to join other countries in condemning Pyongyang over that or the November shelling of the island. Instead, Beijing chided the United States for holding joint military exercises with South Korea in seas across from China's coast.
But a PLA officer, Geng Yansheng, said Beijing nonetheless wants better military ties with Washington, and that a senior Chinese commander, the PLA Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde, would visit the United States in May, following on from US defence secretary Robert Gates' visit to Beijing in January.
"Healthy and stable military ties is important for both sides in striving to build a China-US cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit," Senior Col Geng, who is a spokesman for China's Defence Ministry, told a news conference to introduce the white paper.
Mr Gates' visit and then a Washington summit between presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao marked an easing of tensions between the two big powers after a string of disputes in 2010, including Chinese anger over the US arms transfers to Taiwan.
But Mr Geng indicated that China's concerns about Taiwan and other issues that it calls "core" strategic interests have not eased altogether.
Reuters