China’s Defence Ministry Claims America is the Biggest Threat to World Peace - Here Are the Facts and Figures

On September 13th the Defence Ministry of the People’s Republic of China responded to a critical official report on the country from the United States by labelling America as the biggest threat to international order and world peace. Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Wu Qian stated to this effect: “Many years of evidence shows that it is the U.S. that is the fomenter of regional unrest, the violator of the international order and the destroyer of world peace… Rather than reflecting on itself, the U.S. issued a so-called report that made false comments about China’s normal defence and military construction.” Further elaborating, he stated: “We call on the U.S. 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.” While rhetoric is expected to further escalate as tensions increase, and as the U.S. further enlarges military deployments near Chinese territory, the recent exchange of words provides an opportunity to evaluate the nature of American military actions globally. 

American B-52H Nuclear Capable Bomber on Mission Near Korea

 Colonel Qian in particular highlighted the fact that U.S. actions in Iraq, Syria, Libya and other target states over the past two decades had directly caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and displaced of millions. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, pursued in direct contravention of the United Nations Security Council which voted overwhelmingly against an attack, is considered a leading example of a crime against peace in the 21st century - permanently destabilising the country and paving the way for the rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State terror group which occupied the subsequent power vacuum. Iraq’s population today continues to suffer from civil war, and serious war crimes including the extreme torture of civilians at facilities such as Abu Ghraib prison and the intentional use of depleted uranium weapons against population centres led the U.S. to widely be perceived as a rogue state. The U.S. has since launched large scale military offensives to topple the governments of Libya and Syria, and currently maintains an illegal military presence on Syrian soil which has neither the approval of the government in Damascus or the authorisation of the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. has also openly declared its operations to extract and illegally appropriate oil from fields on Syrian territory - again directly and seriously violating International law. Like those in Iraq, Syrian population centres have also been contaminated by depleted uranium shells from American attacks which cause very serious adverse effects for the health of civilians. 

The United States today drops more bombs beyond its borders than all other countries in the world combined, lending some credibility to Chinese claims regarding its threat to world peace. The U.S. military, unlike that of China or its neighbours Russia and North Korea, is overwhelmingly oriented for global power projection operations rather than territorial defence. A number of figures attest to this, from the composition of the U.S. Navy with an extremely high proportion of high endurance offensively oriented vessels to the ratio of logistical to combat assets which all demonstrate an orientation towards conducting operations far beyond America’s borders. The fact that the U.S. deploys the vast majority of military bases overseas, which account for 95 percent of foreign military installations globally, further aligns with this trend. The majority of the remaining 5 percent belong to allied NATO member states such as the United Kingdom, Turkey and France. Deployments of American special forces are even more widespread, with these present in 138 nations at the last count in 2016 - the only notable exceptions being China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. 

U.S. Military Base in Okinawa

While the U.S. is not the only country to maintain illegal military presences overseas, with French and Turkish forces illegally occupying parts of northern Syria, and the presence of Russian forces in Crimea and parts of Georgia also widely considered illegal, the scale of American violations of international law and of its offensive operations and deployments globally are far above and beyond those carried out by any other nation. American challenges to shipping in international waters, including the illegal commandeering or harassment of North Korean, Iranian and other vessels in the past, and recent calls by the U.S. Naval Institute to consider similar action against Chinese shipping, has further lent significant credibility to the Chinese claim that the U.S. is indeed the primary threat to world peace when considered purely in military terms. Such claims are likely to be repeated in future as the U.S. continues to increase its military presence in East Asia and to carry out shows of force near Chinese territory.