China has followed Russia in criticizing a recent US government report which describes the two countries as potential nuclear threats, saying Washington needs to drop its “cold war mentality.”
China firmly rejected the claim in Washington's latest Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that Beijing is engaging in increasingly aggressive behavior.
The 74-page report, which is the first review of US nuclear policy since 2010, labels China “a major challenge to US interests in Asia.”
The NPR states that both China and Russia have “added new types of nuclear capabilities to their arsenals, increased the salience of nuclear forces in their strategies and plans, and engaged in increasingly aggressive behaviours, including in outer space and cyberspace.”
China’s Defense Ministry hit back Sunday, describing the report as “presumptuous speculation.”
Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said the US should “correctly understand China’s strategic intent and see China’s national defence and military build-up in an objective way,” China’s state news agency Xinhua reports.
Ren pointed out that the US holds the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and must act in accordance with its own commitments to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
“We hope the US will discard its 'cold-war mentality,’ shoulder its own special and primary responsibility for nuclear disarmament, understand correctly China's strategic intentions and take a fair view on China's national defense and military development.”
READ MORE: Anti-Russian & ‘nothing to do with reality’: Moscow lambastes US Nuclear Posture Review
The statement echoes the response of the Russian government which said the accusations outlined in the NPR have “nothing to do with reality.”
America’s readiness to use its nuclear arsenal against Russia preemptively is nothing but an “attempt to question [Moscow’s] right for self-defense against an aggression in a situation that is critical for the very existence of the Russian state,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.