It's said the devil can cite Scripture if it suits his purpose. The Pentagon is notorious for presenting falsehood as good and continually twisting the truth to suit itself. Its report on China's military and security expenditure is ready proof of this.

The report, released on Friday, is filled with speculation and distortions of the facts. It accuses China of being non-transparent about its military spending and accuses the country of cyberattacks on US computer systems. The lie-laden report could fool uninformed people into believing that China is a security and economic threat to the United States.

In fact, China has been taking concrete steps to improve its military transparency. Something the Pentagon conveniently chooses to ignore. Beijing has been publicizing its defense budget on an annual basis since 1978. And since 1995, it has been releasing the complete data on defense spending in its annual White Paper on China's National Defense.

As to the accusation that it is responsible for cyberattacks against the US, China is a victim of cyberattacks itself and Beijing has repeatedly said it opposes any unlawful practices in cyberspace.

In another move to interfere in China's internal affairs and sow seeds of distrust between the two militaries, the US House of Representatives in a vote on Friday approved a measure that would mandate the country sell 66 new F-16C fighters to Taiwan, an inalienable part of China.

Both the proposed arms sale to Taiwan and the Pentagon report were announced and issued hard on the heels of Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie's visit to the US earlier this month. They show the US lacked sincerity when its military officials promised to seek a "healthy, stable, reliable and continuous" military-to-military relationship with China during Liang's visit.

It is crystal clear that the US is responsible for the distrust between the two countries as China repeatedly overlooks the stains with which the US tries to shame it.

If the US really cares about maintaining healthy military-to-military ties with China, it must refrain from throwing mud at China and abandon the counterproductive Cold War-style practices of demonizing China's military and selling arms to a part of its territory.

(China Daily 05/21/2012 page8)