China’s Defence Ministry has said the US poses the biggest threat to the international order and world peace, while also blasting a critical US report on the country’s military ambitions.

The statement follows the September 2 release of the annual Defence Department report to Congress on Chinese military developments and goals that it said would have “serious implications for US national interests and the security of the international rules-based order”.

This year’s report came as relations between Beijing and Washington hit the lowest in decades amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Defence Ministry spokesman Colonel Wu Qian called the report a “wanton distortion” of China’s aims and the relationship between the People’s Liberation Army and China’s 1.4 billion people.

“Many years of evidence shows that it is the US that is the fomenter of regional unrest, the violator of the international order and the destroyer of world peace,” he said, adding US actions in Iraq, Syria, Libya and other countries over the past two decades have resulted in the deaths of more than 800,000 people and displacement of millions.

“Rather than reflecting on itself, the US issued a so-called report that made false comments about China’s normal defense and military construction,” he said in the statement.

“We call on the US to view China”s national defence and military construction objectively and rationally, cease making false statements and related reports, and take concrete actions to safeguard the healthy development of bilateral military relations.”

Consisting of more than 150 pages, the report analysed China”s strategy toward Taiwan, a US ally which China considers a part of its territory to be annexed by force if necessary. 

It also looked at areas where the 2 million-member PLA, the world”s largest standing military, has overtaken the US, including in the size of its navy, now the world”s largest with approximately 350 ships and submarines compared to around 293 for the US.

China has also built a considerable arsenal of land-based ballistic and cruise missiles and has one of the world”s largest forces of advanced long-range surface-to-air systems, the report said.