China Urges US to Stop Perceiving It as 'Imaginary Enemy'

BEIJING (Sputnik) – China calls on the United States to abandon the Cold War mentality and stop treating Beijing as an "imaginary enemy," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

"We urge the US to stop making issues out of China or perceiving China as an imaginary enemy, abandon the zero-sum Cold-War mentality, and see China's national defence and military development in an objective and rational light", Wang Wenbin, the ministry’s spokesman, told a press conference.

Washington should make greater efforts to boost mutual trust and cooperation between China and the United States, as well as maintain peace, stability, and development throughout the world, he added.

Last week, the Financial Times reported that China had conducted two tests of hypersonic weapons on 27 July and 13 August , respectively. Earlier reports by the newspaper about the test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August, which missed its target and caught US intelligence off guard, were rejected by Beijing, which called the incident a routine spacecraft experiment.

Chinese Missile Test

© PLA Daily

Earlier this week, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, compared China's recent hypersonic missile test with the launch of the first artificial earth satellite in the USSR in 1957. Later, when commenting on his remark, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that Washington is concerned by Beijing's military modernization and considers it a threat to regional stability.