TOKYO, Aug. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- Japan's annual defense white paper repeatedly claims "Chinese military threat" which is aimed at finding a pretext for its own arms expansion.

    The "Defense of Japan 2005" report, compiled by the Defense Agency and endorsed by the Japanese cabinet on Tuesday, brings forward an irresponsible version of "Chinese military threat."

    This is not conducive to the establishment of mutual trust between the two countries regarding security and will hurt bilateral relations.

    According to the report, China's defense spending has doubled in the past five years, with this year's spending reaching 244.7 billion yuan (about 30 billion US dollars), a 16.5 percent increase over last year.Therefore, it asserts, Japan needs to keephigh vigilance over the modernization of China's military, especially in the field of nuclear weapons and missiles.

    But when people look at Japan's own defense spending of this year, they find that it stands at 4.856 trillion yen (about 45 billion US dollars), 50 percent more than that of China, while China's territory is 27 times the size of Japan. Such being the case, how can it be said that China's modernization could exceed requirements for self-defense?

    On China's navy and air forces, the report claims that they have shifted their defense tasks on coastal areas and territorial airspace to sea battles and air attack missions. This is yet another excuse for the Japanese government to play up the so-called "Chinese military threat."

    In fact, Japan's air, sea and ground military power is far beyond China's. The Japanese air fleet is equipped with the world's most advanced F-15 combat jets, its sea fleet boasts the capability only the US Seventh Fleet can match in the Far East.

    Japan says that it is watching closely whether China's militarycapability is growing to exceed the scope of self-defense. However, Japan's so-called self-defense-only forces have for a long time possessed the power far exceeding what it needs to defend itself.

    The Japanese government has long been fabricating the so called"China threat." As early as last September, a consultative panel on security and defense forces under Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi proposed a fallacious report, alleging that the continued increase in defense expenditure has made China "a military threat in Japan's surrounding area.

    Being a peace-loving country that has no history of aggression at all, China has reiterated to the world that it will never seek hegemonism. Furthermore, China is no threat to Japan in terms of both economic and military strength.

    Japan also enjoys a remarkable advantage over China in science and technology. It can not only produce the world's most sophisticated conventional weapons for itself, but also provide the key technology and components for the US missile defense system.

    Analysts here point out that Japan's exaggerating rhetoric about China's defense development is designed to divert public attention from its own hefty defense expenditures and pave the wayfor its future rapid military buildup, thus serving the interest of the Japanese government's military ambitions in the Asia Pacific region, as well as the US global military strategy.

    Facing growing calls for cutting defense expenditures followingthe collapse of the Soviet Union, the Japanese government has to make up a "new threat" as an excuse to justify the existence of its powerful military capability. Consequently, China, with its rapid growth of national strength, has become an easy target, analysts said. Enditem