The Chinese military strongly opposes playing up the fallacy of the so-called “China’s military threat” by some US military officials, as such a zero-sum game and Cold War mentality is not conducive to the sound development of bilateral military relations, a Chinese spokesman said on Friday.

“China has followed a path of peaceful development and has firmly implemented a national defense policy which is defensive in nature,” said Wu Qian, spokesman of the Ministry of National Defense, adding that a growing Chinese military will better help maintain world peace.

He said the Chinese side has noticed that defense authorities in the United States often do some “selfish calculations” for more in the military budget by hyping threats from other countries.

“Such practice is short-sighted, and very dangerous,” he said. “We urge the US side to give up the Cold War mentality and look at China’s development of national defense and military in a rational way.”

Wu made the remarks in response to the views of Patrick Shanahan, acting US Secretary of Defense, and Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who exaggerated the so-called “China’s military threat” at a hearing about the country’s defense budget for the 2020 fiscal year. The hearing was held on March 14.