Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian accused U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Thursday of “fueling an ideological confrontation” by advising the United States to keep pace with China’s rising military budget.
The day before he accused Hegseth of using provocative language, Lin was threatening war against the United States.
Lin erupted on Thursday after a reporter for Russia’s state-run Tass news service mentioned a media interview in which the U.S. Secretary of Defense said, “The U.S. doesn’t seek a war with China, but will rebuild the military and prepare for war.”
“The rhetoric of the U.S. official is aimed at fueling ideological confrontation and spreading so-called ‘China threat’ that doesn’t exist,” Lin fulminated in response.
“The U.S. needs to realize that China is not a mirror image of the hegemonic U.S. The U.S. should stop viewing China-U.S. relations with an outdated Cold War mentality,” he railed.
“The U.S. must no longer seek to contain or go after China in the name of strategic competition. We’ve always held the clear-cut view that whatever kind of war it is, a tariff war or a trade war, a cold war or a hot war, they should not be fought and cannot be won,” he declared.
Lin’s outburst was all the more amusing because only 24 hours earlier he personally used exactly the kind of language he was denouncing.
“If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” he thundered in his press conference on Wednesday, after the Trump administration imposed a 10-percent tariff increase on China due to its certifiably poor handling of the fentanyl crisis.
Hegseth’s remarks in the interview mentioned by the Russian reporter were fairly standard for a defense secretary – he was responding to China’s increased military spending using language very similar to China’s justification for spending 7.5 percent more on defense. In fact, he was responding directly to Lin Jian’s belligerent comments on Wednesday, although he did not refer to Lin by name.
“Those who long for peace must prepare for war,” Hegseth said, quoting a bit of advice that dates back to the Roman Empire. “That’s why we’re rebuilding our military. That’s why we’re establishing deterrence.”
“We don’t seek that war,” Hegseth said, referring to a possible conflict with China. “But my job as secretary of defense is to make sure we’re ready. We need the defense spending, the capabilities, the weapons and the posture in the Indo-Pacific, which is something we’re very much focused on.”
The Chinese Communist Party is very focused on the notion that its own weapons are purely defensive implements of peace, love, and stability, while every critic of China is a warmonger spoiling for a fight. Lin is an obedient regurgitator of Chinese Communist propaganda, so he found himself denouncing the U.S. Secretary of Defense for repeating his own words right back at him.
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