Pentagon's PLA report waste of money
- By Zhu Ping
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E-mail China Daily, June 6, 2014
However, a well-known truth is that while China is still testing its drone technology, the US has already advanced in applying it to mass killing.
Two international human rights groups have alleged the US, the long-time self-proclaimed guard of human rights, killed at least 57 civilians with unmanned aircraft in Yemen between September 2012 and June 2013, and conducted drone strikes in Pakistan, in which a 68-year-old grandmother was hit while farming with her grandchildren.
In some-US led countries’ eyes, the Chinese military, no matter weak or strong, will hardly do things right. After the Chinese navy dispatched fleets in search of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, some Western media outlets mocked the Chinese military’s vulnerability revealed in the operation.
In contrast to the US’ network of full bases in Japan, Guam and Diego Garcia, the Chinese navy’s most significant southernmost base remains on Hainan Island. Moreover, the US is far more advanced in aircraft, warships and their detection equipment.
But now the Pentagon report once again expresses worries about China’s growing “regional power of projections” even though the US has set up more than 5,000 military bases across the global.
Just as the report admitted, “the US–China relationship has elements of both cooperation and competition. A new model of military-to-military relations seeks to manage competition through sustained and substantive dialogue and a commitment to risk reduction…”
If the Pentagon truly cherished the new model of bilateral military ties, it could have saved $89,000 by cancelling the report. The Pentagon’s annual PLA reports will only show the US’s hypocrisy, and hardly pull the Chinese military out of its development track.
