Natural response to US' encirclement
The Western media is again full of articles claiming a "China threat". This time the articles uncritically cite a Pentagon report that says China is engaged in "unprecedented" military development and is under-reporting the size of its military budget.
Chinas' military budget is about one-third the reported military budget of the United States. But what is virtually never mentioned is that US military and security-related costs may themselves be grossly under-reported. The US War Resistors League estimates that when other related costs are added, military costs jump up from the officially claimed 25 percent of annual Federal expenditures to 49 percent.
What's more, China's military spending must be seen against the backdrop of US foreign policy - policy which seeks to gain military, political, and economic control of the Eurasian land mass, on which China and Russia occupy central positions.